Shelter From The Storm
by lauraamma
Summary: Liz is homeless and lives her life battling the streets, trying to survive. She's running from the past. But when she pickpockets the wallet of Raymond Reddington, Liz is thrust into a life she never dreamed possible for her when he presents her an arrangement she can't refuse. Can Red help wayward Liz find the true meaning of family and love? AU.
1. Chapter 1

_**I own nothing when it comes to the Blacklist. I'm just a fan, and no profit whatsoever is being made. This idea came to me for some strange reason I'm not sure. Well, partly while watching Pretty Woman. Liz is homeless and Red will try to help her get back on her feet. **_

_**I would love to know if you think it's worth continuing. I apologize if it isn't completely true to the characters, I'll try my best to keep them as they are despite the AU. Basically, it's still the same background for Liz with a few tweaks, which will be explained further on. As for my other story, I'm still writing it, of course. :)**_

_**Shelter From The Storm**_

Its particularly cold this time of the night, especially for someone who lives out on the streets on a daily basis.

The ground is slick and slippery with rain and Liz can feel the bite in the air permeating unpleasantly through the layers of clothes she is wearing, chilling her to the bone.

She huddles closer to the wall, wrapping her arms over herself, keeping her head tucked down, her chin resting on the holey knees of her trousers. This is the worst part of having nowhere else to go and no roof to sleep under. Being cold and unable to find adequate shelter is sometimes worse than the painful pangs of hunger that struck her constantly.

Deciding she can't take anymore of it, Liz stands, her entire body resisting against moving. She works out the stiffness from her limbs, giving her shoulders a shake as she looks for a store or restaurant that is still open tonight; She can't buy any food, as she has no money whatsoever, but the shelter and warmth would be good enough.

Her joints complain continuously as she forces herself to keep moving. She must have been sitting huddled for so long that her right leg has fallen asleep. She has to kick at the air with it for several minutes to get feeling back into it, and then she's off again on her search.

Just her luck, rain starts to drizzle from the sky, and Liz has to pull the hood on her jacket over her head for that extra bit of protection. She starts searching for a store or restaurant to enter with more desperation then. As she starts jogging through a deserted alleyway- this area she has grown to know particularly well, as someone who lives on the street- she catches the dollar notes on the ground that someone has dropped presumably by accident, and she picks them up with her scratched and bruised hands eagerly.

_Six dollars,_ she counts, her heart souring, hands trembling. _She's found six dollars_. Luck must be on her side tonight.

Tonight it looks like she can afford a warm drink to heat her from the unbearably cold night they are having.

The only restaurant she finds is one that no doubt people loaded with money go to. As she pushes her way inside through the double doors desperately, the relief of the warm and brightly lit building is immediate and intense. Liz looks around the place as she starts approaching the counter, deciding she's way out of her league. The décor is modern and luxurious and considering the way people are dressed- business suits and dresses- Liz has an insecure moment as she approaches the counter, all the while clinging to the dollar notes she has found for dear life.

No doubt she sticks out like a sore thumb compared to everyone else; Her jeans are stained and torn at the knees. Her jacket, she knows, is in no better condition than the jeans but it does its job in retaining her body heat on those cold nights.

She catches a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror behind the bar and her heart drops. It's been so long since she has looked at herself in a mirror and what she sees, she hardly recognizes the person staring back at her. Realizing she's still wearing her hood over her head, she throws it down quickly, still staring at the blue-eyed woman in the mirror that seems to be staring back at her in shock.

She's got smears of dirt on her face, and her cheekbones look sharper than they used to be. Dark circles under her eyes, and her medium brown hair stringy and matted, strands hanging unkempt and lifelessly around her face. She can't even remember the last time her hair had a decent wash. Her lips are chapped at the corners due to dehydration. It's probably from the lack of food and water, she decides. Both of them. She has gone without food for most days for so long. There's always a public drinking fountain or an old gas station nearby where she can obtain water and a bathroom but aside from that, even water can sometimes become a rarity. She can't believe how much she has let herself go, how much she has changed. She looks older than she actually is, at twenty-eight years old.

In her appearance shows the effects off too many nights sleeping out on the street, enduring extremely cold degrees and the malnutrition she has faced. She hardly looks like that woman Liz used to be; The one with a bright gleam in her eyes, the one that was always happy and wasn't battling to survive like this. She looks so different compared to that woman she used to be; The one that still had a home and a roof to live under, the one where food was easy to come by and money was easily made and carefully spent.

Now what does she have? Nothing. Her entire life so far has amounted to nothing. No home, no job, no family, no money, no food, nothing.

But at least she's alive. She's managed to survive somehow, and since being stuck out on the streets, she has grown to be incredibly streetwise. She knows which areas are safe, and which are to be avoided. She's learned to rely on herself. How to defend herself, even, though a depraved, slender five-foot-something woman can only do so much. At least she's still alive; That's one thing to be incredibly grateful for.

An older man brushes past her, probably to pay for his tab to leave, and she can't help noticing his attire. He's wearing a three-piece white suit with a matching fedora that he's holding by his leg. He seems like he has just walked out of a GQ magazine or some type of advertisement for high-end fashion menswear with perfectly tailored and pressed clothes and polished footwear. It's evident he doesn't have a care in the world when it comes to money and trying to get by. He's so far from what she is, and Liz can't help feeling slightly envious and hostile towards the man. He oozes some unmistakable sense of power and when he starts talking pleasantly to the man across the counter, he speaks in a voice that's immediately appealing to her.

"Excuse me for cutting in. I believe the young lady standing beside me is first." His voice is low and silky. It takes her a second to realize he is referring to her, and Liz's mouth goes dry as he stands back to let her go first, placing his hand gently on her back for the quickest, briefest moment.

She isn't used to people acknowledging her existence; It's a rarity for her. Usually people like to pretend she isn't there, that she's virtually non-existent, treat her like the dreg of society that she probably is.

His wallet is hanging carelessly in the back pocket of his trousers. Thick with money and tempting. Her fingers ache to snatch it out from his pocket, to make a run for it. It wouldn't be the first time she has stolen from a stranger before.

Liz used to think of herself as a good person; One that abides by the law. But that was only before she had to face the constant tribulations she does now. She's learned to be skilled in the art of pick-pocketing and, what's more, she hasn't yet gotten caught. Her eyes seek out any surveillance systems and cameras in the restaurant, and when she finds none, her mind is made up.

When she looks at the man again, his eyes meet hers from only centimeters away. "Thank you, that's so considerate of you," she murmurs, smiling in the most charming way she can muster.

She becomes self-consciously aware that she no doubt looks a mess, that dirt is still smeared on her face, but it seems to keep his attention on her. In all things considered, that's exactly what she needs; His attention focused solely on her unwashed face, and not on the fact that her arm has moved near him and, more importantly, that her hand and fingers are just barely a hairs length away from grabbing the wallet that's lazily sitting in his back pocket.

Her heart starts pounding and as her fingers successfully slip out the wallet without him noticing, she tucks the wallet into the pocket on her jacket stealthily before leaning back against the counter. Now she just has to make her safe getaway, and she scans through the menu quickly before a reasonable-enough excuse comes to her.

"Oh, what a shame. I don't have enough money for anything on here. I'll go somewhere else instead."

Careful not to look the man directly in the eye, she gives him a quick smile before turning and heading towards the door. Liz knows she's walking too quickly and in a way that is no doubt suspicious, but she can't help it. She's desperate not to get caught. She shoves one hand inside her pocket, making sure his wallet won't fall out or that she'll lose it, and as she opens the restaurant and steps back outside, she feels relief hit her and all the panic leave her body.

What a relief. The man never caught her. She can't wait to discover how much money he has in his wallet. She can't wait to buy herself an actual proper, warm meal to fill her belly. Guilt over stealing the man's wallet and money is the very last thing she's feeling; The relief and happiness over getting some money to scrape by overpowers any proper feelings of remorse she should have towards him, if any.

She walks hastily into the night, slipping the hood back on over her head, searching for a secluded area to check and see how much money she has managed to steal off the guy. Finding an empty area, she leans her shoulder against the wall, pulling the wallet out from her pocket. With eager, unsteady hands and fingers, she opens it and ignores the passport photo of identification for the man, going straight to the sleeve that holds his money instead. Her nose runs from the frost in the air and she wipes it carelessly on her sleeve and sniffles before starting to count the money out.

It's even better than she expects. She huffs quietly in astonished laughter to herself, a tight feeling building in her chest.

"Holy shit," she breathes. "What a score!"

Five hundred dollars. There's five hundred dollars in his wallet! _Five hundred_! Who would ever possibly carry that much money in their wallet at one single time? It's money she can usually only just dream of having. She wonders if she can easily gain access to his credit card, but then she decides maybe that would be going a bit too far.

There's no use getting greedy. Five hundred is more than enough, she decides.

First thing she wants to do, is get some food in her. And some warm clothes. Some warmer clothes without holes in them. And shoes! Shoes that aren't so badly fitted that they pinch her toes every time she walks and runs. The opportunities with having five hundred dollars in her possession is suddenly endless!

The rest of the evening she spends in a little restaurant, splurging for once in her life. She buys a mug of scorching hot chocolate and a delicious pastry cinnamon roll that she shreds off bits with her fingers and dunks it in the warm drink decadently. It's been too long. Too long without food, and she enjoys every minute of it, experiencing the warmth of the drink and the sufficient amount of bread filling her stomach. Then deciding she's still hungry, Liz buys another roll and crams it into her mouth greedily, eating as much as she can possibly get into her. Soon, that constant ache in her stomach dies down and she's left feeling unusually satisfied and full, for once. She clasps her hands over the mug, loving the way it warms up her fingers wonderfully. She's so content that she doesn't realize what's going on, until it happens.

A man enters the restaurant and stands in front of the doorway, blocking anyone from going out. He's wearing a tailored black suit, dark-skinned and bald, and he seems to be watching her far too attentively than she likes. Liz can't help but get an unpleasant feeling in her stomach. Is the man somehow here for her? Is it actually her he is waiting for and is watching? Or is it all just in her mind?

Her brows crease as she meets his gaze while licking her fingers uncouthly. He seems fairly threatening to her. Does he have connections with the man she had just stolen the wallet from? The man whose money she is using now? She can only hope to God that he isn't and that she's simply just being paranoid.

Oh, no. What if the man she stole the money from is some kind of serial killer? Is she going to get murdered, all because she stole the guy's wallet?

_Only one way to find out, she supposes..._

Getting to her feet, she slips the hood of her jacket back over her head and strides towards the door, maintaining eye contact with the man. His face seems to harden menacingly and it's obvious he isn't going to move out of her way. She tries to side-step him, and he steps completely in front of her, blocking her way out. A lump grows in her throat.

"Would you mind getting out of my way?" She pretends not to be anxious. As she attempts to get past the man again, he touches her this time. She's unprepared for it when he grabs her by her arm roughly. A stab of anger hits her. "What the hell do you think you're doing, touching a woman like this?"

She starts struggling again, trying to pull her arm free. But it's just no good. Before she knows what's happening, he has successfully pulled her back outside on the street. A cars waiting for her, one of those fancy Mercedes Benz. One of the tinted windows is scrolled halfway down in the backseat. That damn man she stole the wallet from stares at her through the window, his face impassive_. _

"I thought it would be nice to meet the girl who stole my wallet and all of my money," he says smugly.

Then he opens the door wide, shifts over so there's a seat for her to sit in, and she truly starts to panic. They're trying to force her into the car. Who knows what he'll do to her? Possibly murder her and then dump her body in a gutter downtown somewhere. Rape her? Well, he doesn't exactly look like the raping type. Then again, you never know, do you?

_Not good. This isn't good at all_.

She puts up much more of a fight then. Being on the street has toughened Liz in ways she never imagined possible; She drives her knee up, hard as possible, between the dark-skinned man's legs, getting him in the groin. He barely makes a grunt of pain before he slips his arms around her waist, pushing her towards where the man awaits lazily, in the backseat of the car.

"Let me go, right this instance! Just go to hell, the both of you!"

It's futile. The man succeeds in shoving her face-forward into the leather seat, despite all her efforts to get free. Resigning herself to her fate, she scrambles up and sits properly in the seat, folding her arms across her chest. The man slams the door closed on her and when she attempts to get back out by wrenching down on the door handle desperately, she realizes the child lock is already in place and it won't open. _Fantastic_. She's stuck in the backseat, with a possible maniac.

With a sigh of frustration, she focuses on the man sitting beside her in the backseat. He takes a comprehensive glance of her dirty, unwashed clothes, the scrapes and cuts on her fingers. He just looks. Doesn't touch. She has no idea what he intends to do to her, as far as punishment goes. Something tells her he isn't going to get the local law authorities involved, however. He doesn't seem the type of man.

"Well, thank you for paying for my dinner," Liz says tonelessly. "Not that you had any choice. Still, I enjoyed it all the same." Her smart tongue is the only defense she has right now. The other man gets in the front seat of the car, starts the ignition, and pulls back out onto the road. There is no potential escape route for her in sight, not yet any that she can see of, anyhow. "So, what happens now? Are you going to kill me and dump my body somewhere?"

The man makes a deep thoughtful noise in the base of his throat, his head tilting slightly. Liz doesn't think he has looked away from her once. She stares back at him, motionless, while attempting to work out a way to retreat in the back of her mind. "That all depends."

"Depends?" She lifts her brows at him, her voice drained, breathless. "On what?"

"On why you stole my wallet and just whom it is that you work for," he explains stiffly, his voice deep.

Liz's mind races at his words. _Who she works for?_

Oh, god, she can only wish she had a job and a steady income to survive on.

He smiles at her then- a faint upturn of his lips- and it makes her heart skip a beat. Not because he is handsome for his age, which she admits he is. But it's the way he smiles that gets to her the most; It's pitiful, apologetic. Like he feels sorry for her. Like she's a wounded animal that needs saving and fixing. If there's one way to piss her off quickly, its looking at her like she's a sad, hopeless cause, when she isn't. Liz believes she's stronger than that. And she's gotten this far.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Firstly, I own nothing to do with the Blacklist. I'm just a huge fan_**

**_Wow, I want to thank you all so much. I was so mind blown by the response to the story! You guys are so kind and amazing! I do hope this chapter is all right, thank you!_**

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**_Chapter 2_**

This is very last thing Liz expected to happen, as far as their conversation going. This man assumes that the sole reason she stole his wallet is because she works for someone? Whom could she possibly be working for? Hasn't he noticed she's practically a bum, that she lives out on the street, stripped of a home or any previous life to fall back on? Then again, how could he? They've never met before. But the fact he assumes she stole his wallet other than for the simple fact that she's hungry, that she needed money for food, is ridiculous.

"What makes you think I work for someone?" She whispers in confusion. "Where did you come to that conclusion; that the reason I stole your money was because I'm working for someone? You think someone employed me to steal your wallet?" How ludicrous. "I mean, look at me," she goes on skeptically, gesturing to herself with her hands. "Seriously, do I look like someone who's currently holding down a decent job to you?" His eyes take inventory of her ratty clothes again. "No, I don't think so..."

"Then what a shame." He gives her a tight-lipped smile again as he tilts his head, looking her directly in the eye. She can't deny the way he stares at her is unnerving. In fact, everything about the man is, she decides. It takes all Liz has not to avert her eyes from him.

"Shame?" She can't say she's following. At all. "What is?"

He's the first to look away from her, and Liz feels her entire body sag in relief when he does. She watches him stare straight ahead, gnawing the inside of his cheek, before he answers, "A shame that you aren't going to be very forthcoming and just what we are going to have to do about that to make sure that you are."

Liz isn't following at all, but an unpleasant feeling attacks her. She can't help but get the sense that something bad is going to happen to her if she fails to clarify herself completely. Suppressing a sigh, she reaches into the pocket of her jacket, pulling his wallet out. She's careful to keep the six dollars she found tonight out on the street carefully concealed in her pocket. She doesn't see why she has to give him the money that she found off, and besides, she could really use it, no matter how small six dollars is and what little it can buy her.

"Here's your wallet. Just take it back already."

She holds it out towards where he is sitting tentatively. She figures this is what it is all really about anyway; Him getting his wallet back. The man turns to look at her again and even then, the discomfort of being scrutinized by him gets to her. But he gladly takes the wallet back from her and opens it up, probably suspicious that she's taken something else that belongs to him, like his credit card or identification, for instance.

"Altogether I spent maybe fifteen dollars of your money for dinner, I think," Liz gets out in a rush, wanting to be as honest as possible, figuring it will help reduce the severity of what's to come. "About fifteen dollars. I never tried to access your credit cards and I haven't taken anymore of your money. It's all in there... aside from the fifteen dollars I used for food to eat for dinner." It's impossible for her to know what he is thinking. She thinks his remotely satisfied that she bothered to give him his wallet back. Then again, she isn't entirely sure. She feels guilt rise through her like she's been injected with it. He's clearly not happy about this, and Liz can tell as much. "Look, I... I can't pay you back the fifteen dollars that I used. Well, I _could_ but you're probably gonna be waiting awhile until I can."

The man says nothing, which disturbs her even more. He simply gives a curt nod, shoving his wallet into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Liz really wishes he would say something, at the very least. Tell her what's going to happen now that she has returned it. It would be nice to have a warning beforehand if he's going to be the one murdering her, after all. A little bit of time to prepare herself in advance. When are they going to pull over and let her back out of the car? The question comes out of her mouth before she can stop them.

"So does this mean that I can go now? Are you going to let me out of the car now- or what?"

Liz swallows hard when he shifts slightly in the seat to face her, looking her over again. Suddenly she feels like an animal on show at the zoo. If the man's trying to make her feel small, as if she's something worthless, then he's succeeding. He doesn't even have to say a word, just look at her. It's enough to make her feel like shit, like something unpleasant stuck on his polished shoes.

"Look, I don't know what the hell it is that you want from me?" She bursts out uncomfortably between her teeth. She wiggles around in the seat, irritated. "I just _gave you_ your goddamn wallet back, didn't I? I just _told you_, I have _no idea_ what you're talking about! I _don't work_ for anyone, okay? God, isn't it _obvious that_ the reason I took your money in the first place is just because I was starving and I couldn't afford to buy myself any food. Am I making that clear enough on you?"

"What is your name?" He asks her unexpectedly. _What does he want to know her name for?_

"Oh, what the hell do you care what my name is?" She scoffs. "I mean, really?"

"Your _name_." He's insistent and unrelenting, yapping it out quietly like a dog. "Of course, I'm just only assuming you have one?"

Believe it or not, no one has ever asked her what her name was before. No less showed they cared to know. But Liz knows he doesn't truly give a rat's ass about what her name is. He's probably just trying to know her name so he can make her feel even more bad than she already does about herself and her situation. "None of your business. How's that for a name?"

His jaw clenches and he looks away from her for a moment, eyeing their surroundings.

"Why do you want to know my name? So you can tell the cops on me, is that it? Get me arrested for stealing your wallet and taking some of your money, huh? Well, despite what you think, I'm _not_ dumb and I'm not falling for it."

"Did I say that I believe you were dumb? No, not at all." He throws a look her way again, his tufted greying eyebrows raised, his expression guarded, revealing nothing. "Not once do I recall ever saying that to you, nor have I even yet made the assumption."

"Yeah, well, still. I'm _not_ telling you my name."

"How about a trade, then? I'll tell you, and then you tell me. Does that put you more at ease?" Liz's throat goes unpleasantly tight at his flighty tone of voice. She watches him suspiciously as he starts fiddling with the button on the cufflink on one of his sleeves. As if reading her mind somehow and knowing it does, he says, "Very well, I'll go first. My name is Raymond Reddington, but you can call me Red. It's what I usually prefer."

This feels like a dangerous game to her, a trick. Liz gets the suspicion that he is playing with her, just toying her around, to get some information out of her. She has no desire for the man to know her real name, so she says, first thing at the top of her head, "Sarah. If you really wanna know, my name is Sarah. There, happy?"

She sees him considering for a moment, before he turns to look at her again. "There we go. That wasn't so difficult, now was it, Sarah?"

Just hearing the fake name being said out loud by him makes her very nearly want to crack up and laugh. At least he's believed her.

"No," she answers nervously, shrugging, her voice scratchy. "I guess not."

She looks outside the window nervously, trying to find anything familiar about their surroundings. She has no idea where they are taking her to; This isn't an area she has been to before. She can't shake her nerves, and the horrible heavy feeling in her stomach that something unpleasant is impending on her. Trying to be subtle about it, she grips down on the cold door handle with her hand, wrenching it down again. Just like before, it's pointless. It's still locked.

Liz is afraid to ask, but she forces herself to. "So, just where is it that you plan on taking me exactly?" Her voice works with her, concealing her nerves. But her hearts pumping furiously in her chest. She can feel it, the dread of the unknown that possibly awaits her.

She turns her head, facing the man again, despite her mind screaming at her not to. His arm is perched on the armrest of the door, his body angled slightly in the leather of the backseat to face her. When her eyes meet his again, he gives her another one of his small, tight-lipped smiles. "Where we are going doesn't need to concern you at this point in time," he says cryptically, hardly reassuring her in the slightest. "But do tell me, as I find myself intrigued. Just how does a young woman like you end up on the streets? Given how badly you smell, as if you've been stuck wading knee-deep in your own filth, I'd say you haven't so much as even had a wash in months."

_Ah, so here it was, this is what it all comes down to._ He's hoping to pry into her personal business; stick his nose in where it doesn't belong. Liz hates people like that; People who feel as though they are entitled to ask their stupid questions.

"What's it to you? Why do you want to know my life story so much?"

She watches as the man positions and crosses his legs to make himself more comfortable, she supposes. He says nothing in response, just stares at her in that same unnerving way with his eyes, evidently waiting for her to begin. She has no idea in hell what his deal is; Why does he care so much? Why is he bothering with all the twenty question business?

"What? You want to compare our lives? Or let me guess; You think I live this way by choice? That I had a rough family life and I ran away?"

Taking in a deep breath, she moves her hand to the inside of her wrist, stroking her scar with a repetitive motion of her forefinger. It's always usually enough to calm her down, and this time its no different. Her forefinger stings from a day old cut that she has forgotten about and she feels her face close in on itself in pain as she forces herself to stop using that finger to stroke it with. She sees the grime and dirt stuck under her long fingernails and its enough to make her feel sick. She closes her hand up, letting her nails slice into her palm thoughtlessly. Unfortunately for her, when she returns her eyes to the man sitting beside her, she discovers it has only served to bring his attention to it. To her scar; The one thing she took with her from her previous life, not that she had any say in it.

"What's that?" He dips his chin slightly, indicating her wrist. "What do you have there?"

She doesn't like him asking. Especially not about this. Moving quickly, she pulls the sleeve of her jacket down completely so that the material covers her hand all the way up to the tips of her fingers. "It's nothing," she says shortly.

"Oh, I think it's far from nothing, Sarah."

The need to correct him, to bring to light that her name actually isn't Sarah, rises on the tip of Liz's tongue impulsively. But she doesn't want him knowing her real name, no less anything personal about her that he can use against her as leverage, so she squashes the need to correct him by biting down on the tip of her tongue with her two front teeth to the point where it pains her and hurts her tongue.

"It looks like a scar to me, on your palm. How did you get it? A fire?"

Liz's eyes drift over to the dark-skinned man in the front seat of the car. Is he listening to their conversations? When is he going to unlock the doors for her so that she can finally go about her way?

The man obviously isn't going to give up until he gets several enlightening answers out of her, but Liz is determined not to give him the satisfaction. She raises her chin, meeting his eyes.

"As I said, it's really none of your business." In the best way she has learned, in how to divert a topic she isn't at all comfortable in discussing, she adds quickly, "Are we done now? Can you unlock the door now already so that I can leave and be on my way? You're kind of keeping me from something."

It's a lie, of course; He isn't really keeping her from anything, aside from time to find herself a decent and secure place to sleep for the night. Still, any excuse will do, if it means her getting away unscathed from these two men.

"Oh, forgive me." When Liz lets her eyes meet the man again, he seems to be studying her far too closely and carefully for her liking. There is something sarcastic in his tone that immediately rubs her the wrong way. "I'm keeping you from something? Tell me, what is it exactly that I am keeping you from? Certainly not any sort of job or...family commitment of any kind, considering..." He pauses for a moment theatrically, as if wanting his words to hit her where it hurts most, ..."after all, you're just a lost little girl that lives out on the street." His eyes move back and forth between hers, as if relishing insulting her. "Let's be perfectly clear here, Sarah. You have nowhere else you need to be, do you? I, for one, think it's safe to assume as much."

This well and truly offends her, if that is his intention. Mainly, it hurts because the man is absolutely right. He's hit the nail on the head, so accurately. She's nothing, and she knows that. She has nowhere else to be because, as far as other people are concerned, she no longer exists. She's nobody. Still, it's like swallowing down harsh grains of sand.

Anger boils inside of her, making her hands shake. "Okay, this is enough," she mutters under her breath angrily. "Pull over," she starts shouting at the dark-skinned man in the drivers seat. "Pull over right now! Just let me out of here, right now!"

This has been going on long enough. She hadn't asked for this. For some random stranger to rudely interfere and ask about her life, and to insult her, while he was at it.

"Pull over, Dembe," the bastard man beside her permits in an infuriatingly calm tone, and once the car does and it's unlocked, she wastes no time in scrambling out back onto the pavement, slamming the door shut with all her might. Liz has only just turned away when she hears the automatic window coming down, and this man, Reddington, calls haughtily, "It's funny. You seem more of a Lizzie to me rather than a Sarah. But nice try."

Her heart stops and she feels all the anger and hurt inside her fade. His words sink in belatedly. _You seem more of a Lizzie to me rather than a Sarah._

When she turns back to look at the man through the window, it's too late, and the car is already back on the road, moving leisurely further and further away from her down the deserted street. Holy hell. How on earth did he possibly know her real name?

**So, hope this one was okay and that it hasn't come as a disappointment? **

**Don't worry, Red will track her down next chapter. He basically just had an epiphany on who she is.**

**Again, thank you for the alerts and reviews, I really didn't expect that at all! It means a lot to me, I get very anxious when updating or posting, so thank you so much!**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Firstly, I own nothing to do with the Blacklist. I'm just a big fan here! No profit is being made, this is just strictly for fun and enjoyment.**_

_**Thank you guys so much, it means a lot to me, your kind words. I do hope you enjoy this chapter. As usual, I would love to know your thoughts. They are always very appreciated. You guys are so lovely and sweet, thank you!**_

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_**Chapter Three**_

Liz is deeply shaken by the unsettling conversation she had with this Redddington man while in the backseat of his car. How he knew her actual name in the first place, she had no idea on earth. She had thought she had seemed sincere when lying to him that her name was Sarah. Evidently not. She tries to scan her mind for any recollection of him in her past as she shuffles along the street, trying to find a secure spot to sleep in for the night, however she comes up with nothing.

The man clearly knows of her, seeing as he knew her name- _Lizzie_, something no one has called her in years. But how? As far as she knew, they had only just met. His face has no familiarity to her whatsoever.

She can't help glancing over her shoulder onto the road several times out of habit, worried that same car will somehow pull up near her again. She prays to God she never has to see the man or his friend that put her forcefully into the car ever again. Next time she vows to be more careful and selective about the wallet's she takes from people. He just made her feel funny; Immediately on the defense and kind of, maybe, a little wary and frightened of him. He was rude with his questions, asking her things he had no business in asking about.

What makes matters even worse, is that she is unfamiliar with her surroundings. This isn't a neighbourhood she has been to before; It's dark, deadly quiet with no one out-and-about in sight, except for herself, of course. The street lights illuminating the empty area shows how deserted the streets are. Half of the tan bricked buildings around her are near to falling apart and dilapidated. Clearly no one lives in this area. It's more of an industrial area, rather than a suburban residential area, she gathers.

Rubbing along the top row of her teeth with her tongue distractedly, she finds a walkway near a deep alleyway that seems suitable enough for her to sleep for the night. She nudges a glass bottle on the cracked concrete away with her shoes and any other random trash that looks as though it would be painful and uncomfortable to sleep on, then she folds her arms around herself and slides down the wall to the ground, holding her legs in close to her chest. It isn't as cold in temperature as it was the night before, so for that, she's relieved. She spends a few watchful moments gauging her dimly lit surroundings to make sure the area is completely deserted and safe, before she allows her eyes to close and she drifts off.

When Liz wakes again, it is to the sound of a loud garbage truck going past.

Her eyes snap open as she jerks awake, and she sits up hurriedly from her slump, looking around. She can't be sure what time in the morning it is, but it's fairly sunny and bright. Now that it's daylight, it becomes easier for her to scope out her surroundings. The wall opposite her is covered in graffiti markings, there is a lot of catalogues and countless trash on the ground that someone has obviously couldn't be bothered in finding a proper bin to dispose of them in. A few people walk past her, and judging by their tattered and worn clothing, they are no better off than she is right now.

Then there's a little girl staring at her curiously near the edge of the sidewalk. Her pink jacket is bright in the early morning light, her light brown hair in a neat, tight ponytail. Liz looks around, trying to find her parents but she can't see them anywhere. The sight of the girl brings a strange sense of longing into Liz; She always imagined she would be a parent in the not too distant future. But, like most things, life never turns out the way you expect it would sometimes. She definitely didn't anticipate ending up becoming a homeless person on the street, for one thing.

She sits up closer against the wall behind her, dragging her knees to her chest. "Hello," she whispers to the girl. As if talking to her and seeming friendly has made the girl less nervous, the girl takes two small steps nearer to her.

"Why are you sleeping on the ground?" she asks, in a small voice. "Don't you have a house to sleep in?"

Usually Liz feels defensive over explaining her situation to others, but children seem to be the exception. Children are never as judgmental or rude as adults are to her circumstances, Liz has learned early on. They are wide-eyed and harmlessly curious. She can only smile at the girl. "Well, I don't have a home, that's why," she says quietly, her voice raspy from exhaustion. "When you don't have a home, you have nowhere else to go to sleep. You have to sleep outside instead."

"But why don't you have a home?" The girl's nose scrunches up in confusion. "Where is your mommy and daddy?"

"That's a very good question. I don't have a mommy and daddy anymore."

"Don't you get cold?"

"Oh, all the time." Liz spots the girl holding a clear plastic bottle in her hands and she's dying to ask her, to beg even, for a sip of water. Her throat feels so sore, so dry and parched. She licks her cracked lips to put some moisture to them, only it doesn't seem to do any difference. "What's your name?"

"I'm Beth." The girl smiles shyly, showing a gap in her front teeth.

"I'm Liz, Beth. Beth is a very, very pretty name, but... where are your parents? Are they around here somewhere? Aren't they nervous to leave you alone when you're so little?"

She giggles. "I'm not that little!"

"No, I guess not." Liz's eyes flicker to the plastic bottle again. She hates to ask, especially a little girl. But it is really getting too much; It's like an alcoholic being in a room full of glasses of champagne. The temptation and thirst is too high. "Hey, Beth. Can I ask you something? It's okay if you want to say no, okay?"

"Sure."

She bites her lip, hesitating. "Um, would you mind if I had a drink of water?"

Beth looks down at the plastic bottle she is holding in her hands, then at Liz again. Then she shrugs. "Sure." She steps forward, breaking the distance between them as Liz climbs up onto her knees and scoots away from the wall. Her vision blurs disturbingly and all her back and shoulder muscles are stiff from her awkward sleeping position against the wall. "You can keep it. I don't need it anyway."

"Oh, thank you." Liz's hands tremble as she uncaps the plastic bottle desperately. Her eyes moisten and her heart swells in gratitude. "Thank you so much, Beth. You're too kind!" Pressing her lips to the bottle and swallowing down two big mouthfuls, it's like heaven as the cool liquid glides down her throat. Instantly she feels better. She no longer feels so heady, her throat isn't as sore anymore, and her vision has returned back to normal. She takes one last small swig before she screws the cap back on the bottle securely. "You have no idea how much this means to me, Beth. I'll save the rest for later. Thank you!"

When she moves back against her resting place on the wall, sitting the plastic bottle beside her right leg, she watches as the girl stares at her again. "Don't you feel scared sleeping outside and not in a home?"

"I do sometimes. Especially when it gets very loud outside. But I have something that makes me feel extra, extra brave."

"Oh? What's that?"

"You want to see?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah?" Usually she likes people asking about her scar just as much as she likes people asking her how she got into her current situation, which is next to nil territory, but with this girl, it's hugely different. If anything, Liz is pleased with her company. And that isn't just because the girl was generous enough to give her the bottle of water. Children are always so unassuming, so gentle. "I have a scar, right here. It makes me feel brave about sleeping here outside like this." She pulls up her mangled jacket sleeve and shows the girl, who steps closer in front of her to scrutinize it. "It's like my good luck charm," she goes on, watching the girl's face closely. "When I stroke it, it makes me feel better. Like this." She rubs her thumb up the raised, bumpy mark and the girl's eyes widen.

"Can I stroke it, too?"

"If you want to." The girl lifts her hand and touches three small fingers to her scar, stroking it as you do an animal's fur.

"Ugh, it feels funny," she laughs. "How did you get it?"

"Well, something happened when I was a little girl, about your age. My-"

Interrupting her words, the girl's mother finally swoops in to grab her by the hand roughly. "Beth," she says disapprovingly, tugging her away, "Sorry that she's bugging you," but Liz gets out quickly, "No, no, that's okay, she isn't."

"How many times do I have to tell you not to talk to strangers?" The girl's mother reminds her sternly. Pulling her away briskly, she clearly doesn't think Liz hears her, when she adds quietly, "We'll find you somewhere to wash your hands. You have to be careful who and what you touch. How many times do I have to tell you that?"

Liz is used to it happening frequently, people's remarks, yet it still stings, each and every single time. Even while walking in the street and crossing street lights, she notices how people give her wide berth, like she's some grotesque, highly infectious monster. There is always this stigma carried along about what she's like, because of her current crisis.

"Oh, that's right," Liz mutters under her breath. The mother darts her a rude look, and then off they go, the mother dragging the girl along the sidewalk. When the girl, Beth, turns back to look at Liz sadly, Liz mouths "Thank you" with a grateful smile while pointing to the water bottle. The girl smiles and waves goodbye at her.

More natural instincts come to her and she finds herself dying to go to the toilet. As she stands with some difficulty, her bones crack and she feels disgusting, as she always tends to do, when waking of a morning. She tucks the plastic bottle half-filled with water in her jacket pocket and moves away from her sleeping quarters, trying to make sense of her surroundings. Finding an old gas station or public bathroom would be majorly helpful at this point in time.

Not proudly and without embarrassment, she has to ask a man that walks past her if he knows where the nearest restroom is. He kindly and wordlessly points to where an open building is, and she smiles at him thankfully before rushing over the street toward it. It's a unisex toilet and she makes sure no one is inside before entering. Once she's done, she washes her hands thoroughly and then refills the bottle of water straight to the top so she has plenty to last her for a couple of hours.

_Thank God for Beth being so considerate to give her the water bottle. _If there has been anything useful Liz has learned while living this way, it is how to be resourceful. This way she can carry the water bottle along with her always and refill it with water when she needs it.

Suddenly her dire situation looks a bit more brighter now that she can get adequate supply of water and carry it along with her in the plastic bottle whenever she needs it.

Remembering how grotty her face is, she bends over the sink, cupping fresh clean water in her hands, and tries to scrub all the muck off her face desperately. She's careful not to glance at her reflection in the mirror, as she doesn't want to feel even more depressed than she already does. She feels faintly sick as she exits the public restroom, getting back out onto the streets.

She's just halfway down the street towards the end, when she hears a peculiarly familiar voice. It's a male's voice; Deep and rich. He's looking for a girl, asking a stranger wearing a beanie and padded blue jacket, estimating her physical description and general height. When she glances curiously at the man; she only sees the back of his head, the long scarf neatly wrapped around his neck and shoulders and the long ash grey trench coat, but she knows who he is. She _knows_ its him, she just does, beyond any doubt. While there isn't anything remotely enchanting about the shape of his head, Liz has a good memory and recollection skills. She thinks she'd recognize that voice in a crowded busy room, even.

The tinted pair of glasses he is wearing reflect from the early morning light and he seems to enjoy using his hands while talking a fair bit.

Maybe it was a sign- the way she feels faintly ill upon coming out of the public restrooms? It's like her body was trying to warn her in advance that trouble was coming her way again, in the shape and form of this middle-aged man. The surprise and shock of him asking for her renders her immobile for a good few minutes. She can't seem to move, which she knows is the safest thing to do; She is self-consciously aware that she is just standing there pathetically, almost right behind him, while he keeps going on and on about a physical description of a girl that she knows matches hers completely, right down to her clothes.

What on earth could he possibly be wanting from her now? Unless he really wants her to pay him back for the fifteen dollars she used for dinner last night? Surely fifteen dollars is nothing to him? Considering the way he dresses, his extravagant style, surely fifteen dollars is small fish. She was positive he had plenty of money to spare. Clearly he's just a greedy, self-important man.

Snapping out of her state of stillness, she's only just worked herself into moving away when suddenly he turns and she's looking straight into his face.

Panic races wildly throughout her as his mouth parts and then closes, as if he is just as equally alarmed to see her again as she is. Her body is in fight-or-flight mode. Liz can only see something unpleasant coming from this scenario and anybody with at least an ounce of self-preservation intact would be desperate to avoid it. Bad. Something terrible and bad is about to happen, all due to him, and she's not just going to stand there and let it happen willingly. She watches as one of his hands slip into his coat pocket. He's got a gun in there, and she just knows it. If she can't repay him back the fifteen dollars, then clearly he's insane enough to take her life as payment.

"There you are," he says, like they are old friends of some sort, despite them having just met barely ten hours ago. "I come bearing goods, not being sure which you prefer." She keeps her eyes on him suspiciously as he uses his other hand, placing that into his other coat pocket as well. She refuses to take her eyes off him. Not even for one damn minute. She can't help but get the suspicion that he is talking about what weapon to kill her with. _Would she prefer gun or knife?_ So when the man pulls out innocent-looking, puffed-up brown paper bags from each pocket, she's not entirely sure what to expect from him. _Running still sounds like a very brilliant idea, though... _"I'm assuming you haven't tried these before, but they're fantastic, Lizzie. Bagels; vegetarian with avocado or turkey with Dijon mustard?" He lifts his head to look at her through his tinted glass, waiting for her to make her answer plainly on which bagel filling she prefers.

This feels like a game to her. Some wicked game he is playing. This doesn't make any sense to her at all. Why would he spend all that effort in attempting to track her down, just to give her a bagel for breakfast? Who is this man? What is his deal?

Regardless of her feeling like it's a cruel ploy somehow to gain her trust, like a child molester luring a kid in with candy, who is she to refuse a man's kind enough offer for breakfast? While she doesn't get his intentions at all, she mumbles despite herself, "The vegetarian with avocado." He hands the bag to her and she feels the warmth of the bagel and the freshness of it seeping through the paper bag, teasing her further.

She doesn't realize how starving she is, until she unwraps the paper bag and pulls the bagel out with her fingers hungrily. She scrutinizes it suspiciously for a few seconds, trying to find any faults there, hidden under the golden crust.

For all she knows, he could have mashed some illicit substance in it with the filling to drug her with. She's not a fool, and she doesn't completely believe the man. Why should she trust him? After all, she has no idea who he is or what he wants with her in the first place. She doesn't take a bite of it until he pulls his bag open and removes his bagel himself, taking a fairly large bite of it and chewing it down. The bread is so fresh that it gives out a crunch as he bites through it with his teeth, and her stomach gives off a low, unpleasant rumble in response. If he did in fact drug them, then wouldn't he not be eating his himself? As far as she can tell, it just looks like a purely harmless, albeit delicious, freshly-made bagel.

Thinking to hell with it and deciding to take her chances, she opens her mouth and tears a huge bit of it off with her teeth, very nearly rolling her eyes in pleasure as the creamy taste of the avocado instantly hits her and assaults her taste buds. The bagel is so damn good. _Too good._

He gestures with his free hand silently for them to start walking, and after a moment of hesitance, she does, following him slowly.

She walks beside him, and a weird silence passes between them, but she's too preoccupied eating to care. She hardly cares about being pleasant or polite in eating etiquette when she feels avocado smear around the corner of her mouth. She's just happy to have some food in her, to familiarize herself in how nice it feels to eat. The man is clearly refined and prim and proper when it comes to eating himself, because she notices him bother to get the handkerchief out from inside his pocket to dab the crumbs off his chin with. She would know, since her eyes haven't left him once. She still feels wildly wary of him and she's still waiting for the second he drops all pretenses and turns psycho on her.

When he looks at her through the lenses of his sunglasses, she notices the corners of his mouth are lifted in a faint smile and she can't deny it gives her creepy feelings when he reaches over with his handkerchief and wipes the avocado smearing the side of her lip off with it carefully. She gives him a pointed look and recoils, putting safer distance between themselves. It's like he is a parent wiping the food off his child's face for goodness sake, and she doesn't like the unnerving feeling it presents her, the gesture alone. _At all_.

Liz is still waiting for the moment he draws a gun out of his pocket or, at the very least, the moment her eyesight starts to go all hazy and she crashes to the ground because he has slipped some narcotic into the bagel. But as the seconds wear on, she realizes it maybe isn't actually going to happen, after all.

She's the first one to finish eating her bagel and she scrunches up the paper into a ball in her hands, watching him. She has no idea where this is going to go, and she hates it, not knowing. "So, what's this all actually about?" she finally speaks, watching his jaw move as he chews. She gives him a minute to finish off his bagel and to wipe around his mouth with his handkerchief, before continuing. "I'm assuming this wasn't just about you trying to be generous in offering a homeless, starving girl some breakfast. Let's drop all pretenses now." She stops walking and moves in front of him, facing him directly, cutting him off. "Let's just cut straight to the chase."

"I feel that after last night we parted on a bad note," he says, his voice a low, gentle rumble. She squints at his face, noticing he looks nothing else but honestly regretful, for whatever reason he had. "I felt I had every reason to try to make amends with you. I figured, what better way to make amends to a homeless girl, than buying her a bagel from one of the best bakeries in the world? That'll be something she is unlikely to have experienced before..." She can't tell whether he is being completely genuine with her or not, but he appears to be as much. He seems to look her clothes over, a remorseful closed-lipped smile. It doesn't seem pervy to her_. At least that's something..._

"Um. Fine. So you felt sorry for me. Any other reasons?"

He is still clearly not going to give her any reasonable answers. He just simply looks at her.

She sighs loudly, dipping her chin in exasperation. "Look, just tell me what the hell this is all about, okay? Let me guess; You want your fifteen dollars back, don't you? Is this your way of pestering me and blackmailing me, until I give you the money back? Is that it? You're going to be stalking me now?"

"Stalking you?" He chuckles lightly at her words and it has its effect in pissing her off even more. "Oh, I can_ assure_ you that I'm not stalking you, Lizzie. How very presumptuous of you."

_There he goes again, calling her that._ _Lizzie._ How? What? Why? "For the record, my name isn't Lizzie, it's_ Liz_," she corrects him, hissing bitterly. "And, secondly, how on earth did you know that? How did you know what my real name was?" Her brows furrow, as she searches his face with her eyes desperately. "Have we somehow met before? Because, if we have... then I don't remember you at all."

"There was a young man. He was _barely_ this _pitiful_ shell of a man," he says abruptly, his voice low, compelling. "He had nowhere else to go. I found him one night, sleeping out on the corner of a street. Thin, wasting away. His clothing was... almost non-existent. He said he had been out on the streets for _over six_ years. Six _dreadfully long years. _He said it was like being in an early hell- that was how he described it to me as, his current homeless situation- and he_ did_ look like hell."

She has no idea where he is going with this or no less what the point that he is trying to make is. She has no idea why he feels this is relevant to her, and yet, in some ways, she also does.

"He lost everything; His family, his... home. He had _nothing_ left to him but his name and the small, _painful_ example of clothes that he did have on his back." He sighs pitifully, shaking his head at her.

Liz gathers he is actually talking about a real person, considering how affected he appears.

"He had nowhere else to go, so I... I took him in. Gave him shelter and a house to stay in. Fed him. Gave him food and water. Clothes. Saw to his education. Despite his situation before all of it, he was a very smart man. He had so much... potential. It was just that everyone refused to give him a chance. And, now look at him; He met this lovely woman called Lithia, they got married only last year, and now... _now_ he has a child on the way. He is such a..._ remarkable_ man, but no one decided to give him a chance to blossom into what he could very well become, if given the opportunity." He gives her a small smile. "I did that for him, nearly over fifteen years ago, and I've never looked back ever since. I can't come to regret that decision because... well, he turned out to be one of the most trustworthy and brilliant people that I have had the pleasures of knowing."

Throughout his story, Liz began to understood what he was attempting to say with it all. He was trying to make it an example for her; That she's exactly like that man, that this man could somehow have the power to help her. Get her out of her situation and let her sleep underneath his roof, even. _How ridiculous._ What's next? He's going to save her from her past?

Liz bites out, "Just go to hell."

To her disappointment, it doesn't issue much of a reaction out of him. He simply nods once, chewing the inside of his mouth. "Ah. Fair enough."

"Just what the hell do you think I am? Some kind of charity case?" This entire thing, it is so humiliating on her. While she can tell he probably assumed he was being simply compassionate with her, it felt anything but. Debasing. Her entire body, she discovers, is trembling uncontrollably. Such anger she has never felt before has pushed its way up to the surface. "Look, I know how the scenario truly goes, I'm not dumb. I've seen and had it happen before." Her voice breaks and it's mortifying on her pride. "I know what I am, okay? I'm practically nobody, a glitch in the system. If you think I can easily be manipulated, then you're wrong. Why don't you just cut the bullshit and tell me what it is you_really_ want?"

He remains silent, something that only aggravates her further. She watches the muscle under his eyelid twitch, his expression hardly understandable to her in the slightest.

"I've had this happen to me before, okay? Man acts all nice and friendly and vows to be your saving grace, and then what? Next minute, he has you in his car bargaining with you, fifty bucks for a blow job. Is that how this is gonna go, too?" Her eyes sting with angry tears as she looks him over with the most disgusted, filthy look she can muster. She knows this is where it is truly going to end and she's not falling for it, yet again. His sorry story, which is probably just a crock of lies. "There is _not a chance in hell_ that I'm sucking you off, so you can go to hell, okay?"

Something comes over his face at her outburst as he leans his head back, his eyebrows shooting up, but she can't be completely sure what it is. She thinks he looks vaguely horrified. Or revolted, considering the way the corners of his mouth curls down.

_Well, good._

**_Thank you guys so much, I apologize for taking so long. Hoping this one was okay and that it isn't too out of character lol. Would love to know your thoughts, so please do let me know! :)_**


	4. Chapter 4

_**Firstly, I own nothing to do with the Blacklist. I'm just a fan!**_

_**Oh, gosh, I'm sorry for taking so long to update. I've been busy working and I felt terrified about updating the story haha. I can't watch season 2 of the Blacklist right now, so if this is way beyond what is happening, I apologize. I do hope you enjoy this despite that. Thank you so much for your lovely comments! Keep them coming, it means a lot to me!**_

* * *

_**Chapter Four**_

"Good lord," the man mutters under his breath, astonished. "I can assure you that I am not expecting any of that from you. Do you know what you need? You need to calm the hell down, that's what," the man adds matter-of-factly after her little speech, like she's some wild and unpredictable animal that needs taming.

"_I _need to calm the hell down?" she repeats defensively. "And what about you?_ You_ need to stop following me like some sick stalker. I _never_ asked for your help. It's like you appeared out of nowhere. I don't need anything else from you but for you to leave me alone, okay?"

Things grow even stranger when the man pulls his wallet out of his coat pocket. His fingers tremble as he pulls a couple of notes out from in the pouch. "I'll make a deal with you," he says, his voice wavering with desperation, "I'll give you fifty dollars a day if you agree to come home and stay with me." He tilts his head to the side, looking her over enquiringly, "Does that sound reasonable to you? Or would you prefer more?"

Liz looks him over doubtfully, not believing what she is hearing. _Is he for real?_

But then he seems to read her expression, and he laughs, shaking his head wryly. "Oh, I know exactly what you are thinking. It must be odd, considering how I am virtually a stranger to you. But _I can assure you_ that I mean you no harm, Lizzie." Despite how mistrusting of the man she is, he looks surprisingly sincere.

He must know that offering someone like her money is a quick way to get her successfully tempted into agreeing to his offer. "Wait. So you're saying you'll give me fifty dollars a day if I agree to come home with you?" she asks slowly. Nothing about this makes any sense to her. "And do what? What's the catch?"

"There isn't one. That, I suppose, can be a catch within itself."

"Fifty dollars," Liz repeats, dubious. "_Just_ for staying with you?"

"Precisely, yes."

_Damn him._ It was too tempting for its own good and, no doubt, he was completely aware of that.

"Upfront then," she blabs without thinking. The entire ground seems to whirl beneath her. _God, is she actually considering this?_

He leans closer, as if unable to hear her properly. "Excuse me?"

She hesitates, looking him over carefully once more. As peculiar and eccentric as the middle-aged man seems, she senses no threat there any longer. And if he was actually going to harm her, then she figures he would have done it already. "If I'm actually gonna do this with you, then I want the money upfront," she states firmly. "Meaning _right now_. _Give_ me the money, _now_. _All _of it."

"Well, that in itself sounds reasonable enough," he says, speaking to himself as he starts counting the money out. She almost feels like snatching the wallet from him again, only this time, she doesn't. She knows better this time around and she doesn't want to risk it again. "Here's your fifty upfront. Every night you stay, I will give you another fifty. Does that seem fair?"

_ It seems too good to be true, that's how it seems._

Instead of voicing it aloud however, she purses her lips together and takes the money from him, double-checking to make sure that it is actually real money. It does look real to her, not fake. This entire thing feels like a scam to her, though. "Also, I want to make a few things clear. I have a few ground rules." He looks at her earnestly to show that she has his undivided attention, his forehead pinched in concentration. "Firstly, anytime I feel like leaving, you let me leave. You don't ask me any questions- and certainly not any about my own personal life. Don't ask me how I got this way, or why I am living how I am now. Are we clear with that?"

"All right."

"You don't touch me, you respect my personal boundaries. Don't think I'm going to have sex with you," she continues forcefully. "I'm _not_ sucking you off, _not ever_. So if this is what it's only about- you luring me in like I'm some prostitute-then... you should tell me right now and we can end this right here. Understand?" It seems simple enough to her.

There is a moment of silence where he simply stares at her, digesting her words in. Then he says lightly, "What a colorful vocabulary you have. Sucking me off, as you put it so eloquently, is far from what I have in mind." The sarcasm drips off his tone woundingly. "But thank you for making that clear yet again. If this little arrangement of ours is going to work at all, then you really do need to learn how to trust."

"Yeah, well. No one has really given me any good reason to trust them lately," she retorts before she can help herself bitterly. "Believe me, I'm more than aware that I have some trust issues happening. But usually every time I've trusted someone so far, they've only ended up letting me down."

It's embarrassing and disarming, how sudden she is to spill her heart out to this man. Usually she isn't so quick to say how she is feeling, not to anyone, least of all to someone she has only just met. It is definitely not smart of her.

He nods at her sympathetically. "I understand completely."

"Oh, somehow I seriously doubt that."

"I know it can be incredibly hard to know who to trust when you are knocked down so constantly." Despite believing now that he is no threat to her, Liz still steps back when he comes closer, takes her hand in one of his, and puts it through the crook of his arm, escorting her along. Usually she dislikes anyone touching her without her permission, but passively, she finds herself obeying in walking along the footpath with him. She still can hardly believe what is happening. It all still feels so surreal to her, so sudden. "But regardless of how you are feeling now, know that you can trust me." The same black car as before appears at the end of the street, and he moves forward to open the door for her. "Now, shall we?"

Without any sense, she climbs into the backseat of the car. There is no turning back from this now. What's done is done. She can only just hope she has made the right decision and that it won't end badly later on._ But even if it does, what has she left to lose?_

_BLBLBL_

As it turns out, it isn't a regular house that he lives in, but a hotel. He stays at one hotel room for two nights, then leaves to situate at another different one- or so he informs her as he lets her into the luxury room he is currently staying in for the night.

The room is unlike any other Liz has seen before; It smells like carpet cleaner, the air conditioning machine high up on the wall has left the room at a relaxing cool temperature, and it definitely beats sleeping on the ground out on the street in a secluded area somewhere.

The room is lit by modern dome lamp lights. The large bed and matching bedside drawers made out of dark wood. Liz finds she can hardly refrain herself from sitting on the bed or at least trying out jumping on the mattress. She can't even remember the last time she slept in a bed, let alone under a securely roofed building. Her stomach tenses unpleasantly when she sees an unlit and empty fireplace opposite the bed. It's the one thing she could definitely do without seeing.

Liz had no idea that people lived this way; That they lived with such wealth and extravagance. Well, maybe she did, but she never once dreamed that she would get the opportunity to stay in one of these fancy rooms now.

"God, this is where you stay?" she whispers in amazement, turning around on the spot. "How pretentious." She cringes at the rude comment that flies out of her mouth as she turns to look at the man.

His head is tilted slightly as he studies her in a way that is unnerving. Then he shakes his head silently and moves around, unbuttoning and removing his coat. She watches him cautiously as he neatly drapes it over an antique armchair near the fireplace. Somehow, she gets the sense that she is majorly cramping his style. She definitely feels out-of-place.

Her eyes are still on him as he moves towards the telephone near the bed.

"So, what happens now?" she asks awkwardly.

He holds the phone up to his ear without looking her way. "Now? Now what happens, is that I order room service, Lizzie. It's one of the many perks of staying in a hotel room." He looks over at her questioningly. "Is there something you want?"

She blinks at him in confusion. _What could she possibly want? Is he really letting her choose something?_

Seemingly having lost his patience with her, he sighs and shakes his head before going through with making orders. But what the hell would she know about ordering room service? It isn't like she has ever done it before, after all...

"The bathroom is right through that door," he continues distractedly while listening on the phone, waving her off vaguely with his arm.

She stares at his back in confusion before finding the open door that obviously leads into the bathroom area and she peers inside nervously, looking around. The bathroom is stark white and covered in tiles, the bathtub massive. God, she can't even remember the last time she had the chance to soak in a hot bath, but she doesn't exactly want to be rude and just jump right in, does she?

"Um, do you mind if-" she begins uncertainly.

He turns, meeting her eyes. It's the strangest feeling in the world, having to ask a man's permission for doing something as simple and basic as running yourself a hot bath.

"Do you mind if I go wash? If I run a bath?"

He nods at her and the condescending way in his tone and manner does not go unmissed by her, "Please do. With all due respect, you smell dreadful." His thoughtless comment leaves her feeling as if she has been smacked across the face brutally. It's matter-of-fact, harsh, and it hurts.

"Gee, thanks," she huffs out, slipping into the bathroom without a further word.

Closing the door securely on herself, Liz takes great pride in turning the lock on so he can't think of coming in and interrupting her unpleasantly. She leans against the door and has to take a minute to gather her thoughts and collect herself. She feels shaken in a way she doesn't understand. This whole thing, how he is letting her stay with him in his extravagant hotel room, it's... unbelievable. Who was this man? And why was he being so nice to her (aside from the snarky comments on her body odor, of course)?

_Red._ She has to remind herself. _His name is Red. He has a name._

She glances down at the large bathtub again. While she mightn't understand how she got into this situation or why this Red is being so considerate as to let her stay in his hotel room for the night, his advice is definitely good advice. She really should have a bath and she probably does smell dreadful- although she no longer is conscious of how she smells.

Familiarizing herself on how to run the bath, she plunges her hands into her pockets, removing all her belongings. It's hardly anything; A few scrunched-up dollar bills here and there, a few candy wrappers, and that water bottle the little girl Beth gave her earlier on in the morning. She places everything she has on the pristine white sink, then starts undressing herself for the bath- the thing she dreads the most. She's careful not to meet her reflection in the large mirror as she removes all of her clothes and once the bathtub is halfway full, she climbs in, sighing at the immediate warmth that hits her body.

She doesn't know how long she spends in the bathtub for, but after awhile, there's a light knock on the bathroom door and she gasps, remembering just where she is and with whom.

"Lizzie, are you still alive in there? Or have you somehow found a way to drown?"

"Huh?" She sits up in the water hurriedly, splashing around. "Oh, God. Sorry, I... I just lost track of the time in here. I'll, um, I'll be out in a minute."

"That's fine," he says, his voice muffled through the wood. "Take your time."

Careful to not look in the way of the mirror again, she grabs the towel and stands, dripping wet, quickly drying herself off. She doesn't even have to look at her body in the mirror to know how terrible she looks; It's there in the numerous scratches and bruises covering her body, the way her ribs jut out.

"I guess I just forgot how nice it was to have a bath," she mutters loudly. She can't be entirely sure that he is still standing near the door to hear her or not, but she doesn't really care either way. "It's been... too long." Forgetting herself, she looks at her reflection in the mirror after having slipped back into her old jeans and her shirt. The face looks back at her emotionlessly and she doesn't realize she's crying until she sees a wet stream of tears trickle down her cheeks. She wipes them away with the back of her knuckles, inhaling deeply. Crying usually isn't something she lets herself do often, but how her reflection in the mirror looks is confronting. "You're disgusting," she whispers to her reflection miserably. Self-loathing fills her. "How did you let yourself get this way?"

It's a question Liz had continuously asked herself over the years and still, no logical answer came to her.

**Hope you found some enjoyment in this one? Thank you guys so much for your lovely response, it had left me mind blown. I'm trying to keep Red and Liz in character as much as possible despite the change and Liz being homeless, it's been a challenge. I would love to know your thoughts as always, so please do feel free to review. :) **


	5. Chapter 5

_**Again, I own nothing to do with the Blacklist. That is kind of obvious though haha.**_

_**Wow, thank you all so much! I really never expected so much support for this story. It means a lot to me! Thank you!**_

_**And I apologize about this one. I fear its a pile of... crap, for a lack of better word. So I'm sorry!**_

* * *

_**Chapter Five**_

Realizing she can't spend all her time in the bathroom hiding away, Liz quickly slides her jacket back on, keeping it unzipped. She shoves all the wrappers and dollar notes back inside the pocket before unlocking the door and exiting back into the main room. Her hair is dripping wet from the bath, clinging around her face, and she feels herself tense when the man, Red, moves back into sight in the room. He isn't alone anymore; That man from before follows him into the room, that dark-skinned man who had forced her into the car yesterday.

He meets her eyes without so much as a mere smile or a kind word in greeting, and Liz decides she isn't so sure what to think of him. Then again, forcing someone into a car isn't the quickest way to leave a very good impression on them.

She sees he is holding several plastic shopping bags in his hands and when he turns to address the other man, his voice is quiet and uncertain, "Raymond, where do you want these?"

_So he does speak after all..._

"Just put them on the bed, Dembe. Thank you." Red turns to look her way and his eyebrows shoot up, as if he has only just noticed her standing there. He looks her over with his eyes, biting the inside of his cheek contemplatively, as if she is just an object to scrutinize, not an actual person with feelings, and her stomach flips. "Ah, Lizzie. When was the last time you so much as even changed your clothes?" he asks her curtly.

If he is trying to purposefully catch her off-guard, he has succeeded. "What?"

"Your _clothes_. When was the last time you've changed them?"

"Oh, God," she sighs, shrugging. What a weird question. "I don't know. It isn't exactly like I have been counting the days."

"Well, you are in luck then." He looks at the man and smiles tightly. "I had Dembe go purchase you some clothes." Moving towards the bags on the bed, he starts opening them, pulling out various items of clothing and dumping them on the bed. "Of course, we had to guess on the size but if you find they aren't fitting right or are just not suited to your style in general, just tell me and we can get you some different ones instead."

Liz's mouth goes dry and she swallows, hard. _So he's buying her clothes now? Somehow it doesn't feel appropriate, the fact that he is._

Still, she can't pretend she isn't grateful. The thoughtful gesture alone moves her in a way she is not proud of, to the point where she feels her eyes well up with moisture. It's shocking that someone could be so kind. Shocking, and unexpected. Kindness in people isn't something she has experienced all that often, especially not directed at her. Something feels off about it all, though. She can't help but get the gnawing suspicion that he will be expecting something from her, sooner or later. After all, a man can't be that generous without expecting something in return.

"You brought me clothes? Why?" She stares at him, searching in his eyes for some kind of explanation there. "Why would you go through all that trouble? You've agreed to give me fifty dollars a day. So why this as well?"

Liz is more than aware that her tone of voice isn't very grateful. She sounds stiff, suspicious.

It becomes slowly apparent to her that he isn't going to bother enlightening her anytime soon. He stares into her eyes for a long moment, his cheek gives off a twitch, and then he deliberately looks away, selecting some clothes at random and holding them out to her.

"Here, put these on. You'll feel better, no doubt."

She doesn't move forward to take them. She stares him down, waiting.

"Why are you being so kind to me?" she demands, her voice just above a whisper. "What's your reason for all of this? What do you want from me exactly?"

As if fed up, he closes the distance between them himself, and she has no choice but to move her hands to take the clothes from him when he hurls them at her.

"You're welcome," he says back, just as quiet as her tone of voice is. It isn't exactly the answer she was hoping for. Actually, it is hardly what she would count as an answer. Something is there shining in his eyes, something that tells her he is disappointed in clearly how ungrateful she is acting.

She knows she has to say it then, and it's going to be hard. Probably the hardest thing she has ever done.

But swallowing her pride, she forces herself to say grudgingly, "Thank you. For everything." She finds it hard to say it while looking at his face, so she lowers her chin, looking at the clothes he has given her instead. "It means a lot to me, what you're doing. I do appreciate it. I just... I'm not used to somebody being like this. For someone to actually show me that they..." Her voice trails off as she tries to find the correct words. "...That they even care."

When she lets her eyes flit up to his face for a brief moment, he nods at her once. His expression is surprisingly grave with a mixture of both understanding and sympathy. She figures its enough to satisfy him- that moment of admitting her gratitude. Even if having to say it to somebody was as painful for her as it would be walking on shards of broken glass. It's detrimental to her ego but she knows she would have had to make her gratitude clear on him sooner or later regardless.

What feels like an especially heartfelt and hard moment for her- where she is putting herself on line and allowing herself to thank someone- it is somewhat marred when he turns and looks for something else in one of the plastic shopping bags. Her stomach tightens and she feels herself redden when he dares to hold out a pair of flimsy underwear to her.

"I think you'll be needing these also," he says, dropping them on top of the pile of clothes she already is holding in her arms.

He gives her a quick smile before turning away, humming deeply as he makes himself comfortable in the armchair near the unlit fireplace. It isn't like he made the comment to be deliberately perverted or salacious, so Liz supposes she can forgive him for it. A stranger having to buy her new pairs of underwear isn't the most wonderful thing in the world, but clearly the man has no sense of personal boundaries, nor even cares what he says or how it could be misconstrued.

He definitely is the most strangest man she has ever met in her entire life.

Huffing under her breath, she goes back into the bathroom, locking it securely again while she changes. She still cannot believe she allowed herself to get into this situation. She has no idea who this man is, aside from the name he gave her. He somehow knew her name is Lizzie. Above all that, beyond all rhyme or reason given, he seems to want to help her. She knows nothing about him, and yet, here he is, buying her underwear and clothes and letting her sleep in his expensive hotel room.

She can't help wondering if he does this often for people. Does he have this thing where he invites homeless people into his hotel suites, feeds them, and then dresses them up to his liking or something?

The black shirt he has brought her is too baggy and long at the waist, but the grey sweatpants seem to fit her well enough. And it does actually make her feel better, wearing clean clothes. There isn't any holes or stains on the fabric; she can feel how much of a difference it makes on her skin. She just wishes the sleeves were longer on the shirt to cover her gangly arms and hide the dark purple bruises and scratches decorating them.

When she returns back into the room, she's surprised by the sudden change of scenery.

Already there is two room service carts; One with various types of foods on plates, the other with a bucket of what looks like a bottle of champagne cooling inside it. Then near it are numerous glasses of water-like alcohol or something of the sort. This definitely seems like wining and dining at its finest. Liz has never seen so much food in her life; A selection of cheeses, breads, some kind of ocean creature with various dipping sauces.

Her mouth waters at the delicious sight and she feels her stomach give off a vibrating rumble.

It takes all the self-restraint she has not to just rush over and start cramming different things into her mouth, all at once. Something tells her that would be incredibly rude if she did, so she tells herself sternly not to.

"Dembe and I have decided to embark on a little side-mission, Lizzie," Red says conversationally, from his position in the armchair, "Where we are going to try fattening you up. You have to try everything once, at the very least..." The man in question, Dembe, was no longer in the room.

_But fattening her up? What is she, some type of science experiment? _His thoughtless words offend her. It becomes clear to her that he just truly doesn't care what he says or how he comes off while saying it. He obviously just doesn't care at all.

"Thank you," she mutters, hardly caring that the hurt shows in her tone of voice.

"You're too... thin. Like a skeleton. You can see the bones in your neck. It's disturbing." He makes a deep noise at the back of his throat at her, like he actually finds her as unappealing as Liz feels she is on a daily basis. She has a fair share of insecurities, like everyone does. She just doesn't need someone like him rubbing them all in her face, though.

It's as if he is accusing her of not eating enough, like it's her very own fault she hasn't been able to eat enough food as she can't afford it.

Now Liz is starting to get those niggling doubts in her again, that this was such a terrible mistake, agreeing to this. There is a way he talks to her; a way that is equally both condescending and patronizing.

He appears oblivious to it anyway, when he stands from the armchair, approaching the carts. He picks up one of the glasses, handing it to her and she looks at the contents in it suspiciously before taking a curious yet cautious sip. She knows what the drink is the instance she spots the olive in it, speared through the middle with a toothpick, but having tasted one is another matter altogether. It's strong, yet fantastically refreshing simultaneously. When she lets her eyes meet Red's while drinking down another mouthful, she discovers he is already staring at her while taking a sip from his own drink.

"It's a martini," he explains to her straightforwardly after he swallows, as if she's this uneducated woman who doesn't know anything. "Gin and vermouth. The green garnish in it is an-"

"-Olive," she cuts him off briskly. "Believe it or not, I know what a martini is. I've just never tried one."

He inclines his head slightly to the side, observing her. She might be mistaken, but she sees some surprise glistening aware there in his eyes. It's insulting. "Do you? Well, I have to say I'm impressed, Lizzie."

"Why does that surprise you so much? You think because how I am, how I live out on the street, that... that you're smarter than me? That I don't know anything? Is that it? You think I'm stupid? Uneducated?"

"Not in the slightest," he says, without skipping a beat. He gives her a smile; A faint upturn of his lips. "I happen to think you are _very_ special." She tilts her head back, taken aback by that comment. Disturbing of all, is how he looks. Deadly serious and like he is being heartfelt in saying that.

"_Special_? Meaning what? What the hell is special about me?"

Placing his glass back down, he moves towards the cart of food. He's ignoring her and she can see that quite plainly. "You have to try the salmon, Lizzie. Have you?" He gathers an empty plate and knife and starts cutting through half of the salmon on the dish. He's hoping to distract her. On this, she can read him surprisingly well. "Tried salmon before? I have a feeling you'll enjoy it, if not. This one particularly. I had it yesterday morning, and _it just melts_ in your mouth. It was so-"

"-You never answered my question, did you? About how you knew my real name?" She butts through him loudly. "Far as I know, we have never met before. Have we? Who _are_ you, and _why_ are you bothering to help me?"

It's almost comical; There he is, still prattling on about how good the food is compulsively while dumping various things on a plate for her to eat, his hands shaking, while she talks over him, trying to get him to give her something good to go with.

She figures he has to crack and start answering her eventually, so she keeps at it determinedly. "Don't tell me you are just doing this because you're trying to be Mr. Good Samaritan. I know that isn't it!"

Still not answering her, he hands her the heavy plate of food, lifting his head to meet her eyes as he does, his gaze penetrating and daring. She feels her blood boil inside of her with frustration. Why isn't he telling her anything? Why won't he tell her how he knew her real name, at least?

She then sees the imprint of a ring on his forth finger. He used to be someone's husband. Or... possibly, he still is someone's husband? One more thing she knows about him, aside from his name. One _small _thing...

"You were married once," she says confidently, bringing her eyes up to meet his again. "Or maybe, you _still are_ married. You had a wife, but your not wearing your ring anymore. Divorced?" She just needs something. _Anything._

"As entertaining as this all is, I have no particular desire to discuss any of this with you. But yes." After a long uncertain moment, he adds, his voice an octave lower, "Yes, there was a wife. And yes, we are divorced."

"Why?" Liz can hardly care less that she is prying. She needs to know at least something personal about the man. "What happened?"

"Life," he simply says, with a shrug. "Life happened. Sometimes people grow apart. Also, I had a daughter."

"Had?" She persists, catching onto the word. "Meaning what exactly? Did she die?" She knows she ought to show a little delicacy with phrasing the question, only she decides she can't be bothered. He hasn't shown her the same consideration in all the times he has spoken to her so far, anyway; From saying how she needs to be fattened up, to his certain air of superiority.

"Since we are doing this, tell me about you now. What happened to your family? Why are you living out on the street? Or did you simply choose to?" he asks her caustically. "That scar, on your wrist? There was a fire? Someone tried to hurt you?"

His words are definitely on-point. There was a fire. A fire was the reason for all of this. But under no circumstances was she going to go through it with him. "I thought I had made myself clear," she reminds him pointedly. "No questions about my personal life. I'm not getting into it with you." She tries to make her voice brighter, carefree, "Besides it's too long of a story. We'd be sitting here for hours and I'd rather not." She looks down in awe at all the steaming warm food he has topped up onto her plate. "And I_ do_ really want to eat all of this. Something tells me I'm going to enjoy every bite," she adds.

Catching onto her hint, he waves her off with an arm towards another antique armchair by the window. "Please, sit. Make yourself at home and do dig in." She doesn't need to be told twice.

Instead of using a fork and knife, which he does to eat, she uses her fingers instead. Eating is more enjoyable when you get your fingers messy, she believes. She pulls off various bits of food- stuff she doesn't think she has even tasted before- and he's absolutely right about the salmon; It _is_ delicious and it does melt in her mouth. Especially when combined with the sauce. Hollandaise sauce, Red tells her it is, and she doesn't know what is in it or why it is called that, no less. All she knows is that it goes really, _really_ well with the salmon.

After cramming down a few more mouthfuls, her stomach starts to hurt. Now she thinks she understands when people say they are 'Full as a boot'. It's an unfamiliar and extremely uncomfortable feeling, a sensation as if her stomach is any second away from exploding open. Trying to ignore the horrible feeling, she turns her attention to her companion instead while licking her fingers clean.

Everything about this Red is so prim and proper, she thinks. He's like an alien, some creature she finds she is having difficulty in understanding.

Liz remembers a time where she watched this show in a public building, a crime-drama, and how she was so fascinated in the way they do things. The profiling aspect of it particularly; She used to dream of herself working in the field of law, of being an agent for the government. Just because you live out on the street, it doesn't mean you don't have any aspirations or dreams anymore. If she ever had enough money, she would have applied for university, first chance she got. In fact, if her life had turned out differently, it wasn't hard to envision herself studying to have a job in law. A special agent for the government, a profiler; Someone who would come home at the end of a long day to her husband and children. That was where she would have loved her life to have ended up.

Just to amuse herself, she studies him. He'd be around his early fifties, she assumes. Divorced, as he told her. Has a daughter he probably no longer is in contact with. He's clearly a man that enjoys the finer lifestyle; Renting out different expensive hotel rooms, wining and dining. He isn't in the best shape, but that just shows he is fond of indulging in fine meals and wines every now and then on a regular basis. A probable control-freak that doesn't like any sudden changes, he needs consistency.

Above all that, there is definitely a certain air of loneliness there. There's a melancholy there, a sadness. Is that why he is doing this for her? Not so much that he wants to be Mr. Good Samaritan and help her, but because he needs her just as much as she needs help and someone to show her the kindness she has never been given before? He's lonely, and he is probably enjoying this, picking some unknown young woman off the street to share a meal with, seeing as he clearly doesn't get the opportunity very often.

She watches him surreptitiously out of the corner of her eyes while he eats. He takes his time eating; slowly chewing and cutting everything up into small, neat pieces with his silverware. A napkin is unfolded and tucked into his collar so he doesn't risk spilling anything on his fancy clothes. _Definitely the prim and proper type._

"Why don't you just use your fingers?" she asks thoughtlessly before she can stop herself. "I mean, it isn't like you are in a public restaurant somewhere, right?"

Red pauses from eating to look at her. She sees the shudder of disgust that passes through him at the mere thought. "I'd rather not. Have you seen how many germs that can accumulate on your hands and fingers in one hour?"

"So what?" Liz shrugs, wiping her hands down her sides to dry them. "Germs are everywhere. Besides it's more enjoyable eating with your fingers..."

"Hmm, yes. To _you_, perhaps. I'm hardly surprised that germs wouldn't bother you. That sort of thing wouldn't bother you, would it?" He tilts his head to the side, his eyes shining maliciously at her, his voice deep and low. "After all, this is coming from a girl who hasn't cleaned herself in what I am assuming is years, until just before when I allowed you to use the bathroom."

It hurts, her eyebrows draw together, and she finds it hard not to let it show in her expression. This is possibly the hundredth time he has said something like this to her; A wounding comment, something that cuts her down to size and puts her in her rightful place. She's nothing- she has no job, no family, no home- therefore she is nothing. That is what his tone implies that she is to him. She wonders yet again if this is such a huge mistake, in agreeing to let him take her into his care in the first place. If she had known in advance that she was going to be treated like this, in being talked down to and made to feel like she is nothing more than scum between his toes, then maybe she wouldn't have agreed in the first place.

Liz needs money, yes, and his offer is extremely inviting. Fifty dollars a day just for doing nothing but staying with him in his hotel rooms; And, on top of that, getting free food as an added bonus. Yet she isn't that without self-respect. The chance to get easy money off someone is wonderful to her, yet if she has to sacrifice her self-worth, then she's out. _Out for good._

"You know, if I wanted to be treated like this then I would have stayed out on the street," she gets out under her breath, rising off the chair to her feet. She puts her empty plate on the cart.

"Treated like what?" He has the gall to sound utterly innocent and as if he has no idea on earth what she is talking about. She takes in a few deep breaths, reminding herself to stay firmly in control. Losing her temper on him now wouldn't make her look so good.

She turns to look at him, and he looks just as bewildered as he sounds. He is sitting straight in the armchair, mouth slightly parted and forehead creased.

"Look, I'm grateful. Very grateful that you're trying to help me out. I appreciate that you're doing this, that you're taking me in and feeding me, and that you have even supplied me some clean clothes. Don't get to thinking that I'm not." She looks in him in eyes, hoping to sound and look earnest. "But frankly, I never signed up for this. For you to... insult me and humiliate me with your comments." Her voice is undependable, high-pitched, and unsteady. She sounds way more vulnerable than she likes. But she presses herself to carry on. She has to make this clear on him. "Yes, I haven't had the chance to wash in a long time. So because of that, I'm sorry I don't smell daisy-fresh. But if we were reversed, this whole situation, I would never say or make any of these comments that you have done to me so far. If you just want me here to go on a power-trip and make yourself feel better, then I'd prefer to leave than have to sit here and endure it with you. So which is it?"

His mouth parts then closes. Then he stands smoothly, tugging the napkin from his collar. He walks towards her, sets his plate on top of hers on the cart, scrunching up the napkin and tossing it on the plate as well, and then stares at her for an uncomfortable, wordless minute. Liz has never met a man that could have such a penetrating stare before. It's unnerving, but she tries to hold her own in maintaining the look.

"Forgive me," Red says once his moment of silence is over, shaking his head. He sounds heartfelt, at least and as if putting more weight to that, he places one hand on the left side of his chest, over his vest. "It wasn't my intention to make you feel upset, Lizzie. Forgive me if I haven't displayed the right amount of sensitivity to you."

Now she feels terrible. "No, it... it's fine. I would just appreciate it if you could stop it with all the comments. I'm a person, regardless of the fact that I have... nothing. I have feelings, too."

"I understand. And I'll refrain from making comments next time."

"Thank you." Her heart swells with relief and she smiles at him anxiously. "It would mean a lot."

After the awkward conversation is said and done, Liz decides to get an early night of sleep in. Red returns back to his armchair with a drink and sits, crossing his legs out beneath him. He pulls something out from the side of the armchair- a book. Liz can't even remember the last time she read a book. She isn't even so sure she still remembers how to read, scarily enough.

"You like reading?" Liz asks curiously. She realizes it's quite the ridiculous question, because it's obvious he does.

He takes a sip of the drink in his glass before answering without looking her way, "I do. I find it to be very... relaxing."

"I can't even remember the last book I read," she says, yanking the sheets down the bed. "Actually, I don't think I've ever read an entire book before." She shrugs. "I apparently have a short attention span. Or so some guy told me. He didn't even know me."

"Interesting." His voice is quiet and distracted with reading. Liz mashes her lips together, warning herself to shut up and give the man some peace, and busies herself with getting into bed instead.

Mostly, she's looking forward to sleeping in a bed and not on hard ground for once. And under a roof, where it covers her from rain or any cold drafts of air. As she gets ready to slide in, a new issue presents itself. One she never thought about before.

"There's only one bed, yet there's two of us?"

"Yes. Well done with your counting."

She ignores his words with some effort. "Which side do you want? The left or the right? I don't want to put you out. I mean, this is your hotel room, after all."

The long sigh he gives out through his nostrils tells her that she is disrupting him from his reading session. "I want neither. You can have both sides, Lizzie. I'm not much one for sleeping. I'm more of a... short-time napper."

"Seriously? I get the bed all to myself?" She can hardly believe her luck. She stretches out more, taking up all of the space in the bed. It's like an early heaven, being in a warm spacious bed. "What exactly is it that you do for a living?" she asks, realizing he hasn't even told her. "How do you afford to stay in hotels like this?

"I'm a criminal," he replies, deadpan.

She laughs derisively, surprising herself at the sound that comes from her, "Oh, I'm sure you are."

"If only you knew..."

**Thank you again, your comments/alerts that I have received mean the world to me and I'm sorry if this was crap! I know it is probably unrealistic, Liz agreeing to stay in a strangers hotel room, but I guess when you are desperate you're willing to risk anything and take your chances. :)**

**HAPPY EASTER!**


	6. Chapter 6

_**Firstly, I own nothing to do with the Blacklist. I'm just a very big fan.**_

_**Wow, thank you all so much again for your lovely reviews, and the alerts I have received. I really wasn't expecting it, and as usual, I'm anxious as hell to update. Sorry for taking awhile, my inspiration left for a bit, but now it's back. I do hope this isn't terrible. Thank you!**_

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_**Chapter Six**_

Red finds himself reading the paragraph in his book over and over, his mind not completely with it this evening. Sighing, he closes the book and places it back down on the floor on the side of the armchair, reaching for his glass again. The only sounds in the room that he could hear was her. Her breathing, in a constant steady rhythm. There's something oddly calming about hearing the noises someone makes while they sleep.

Finishing the last of his drink, he stands slowly as not to wake her, approaching the side of the bed where she sleeps, her legs akimbo and tangled up in the sheets. One arm is slung over her forehead protectively, the shirtsleeve so short he can easily make out the thinness of her wrist, the multiple scars, scratches, and bruises there.

He reaches down impulsively, taking her wrist in his hand gently and lifting her arm to get a better glimpse of all the scars, the purple and yellow bruises. He gets a niggling suspicion that she's been reduced to engaging in self-harm over the years and he sighs to himself pitifully.

_Lizzie, what has happened to you? What has life done to you? What happened to Sam after he took you in?_

He feels his eyes gather with moisture as he surveys her while placing her arm back down carefully at her side. He cannot believe she is that same little girl; that same little girl he had come across years ago during that fire. And yet she is more different than that little girl in many ways he can hardly comprehend. Jaded, cynical. Lost. Where has the time gone?

The creaking of the floor alerts Liz to his approach to the bed and she feels her heart race. She tries to keep her breathing normal as possible, her body still, when she almost senses his eyes on her, observing her. He thinks she's sleeping, yet she's finding she's having difficulty. While it was nice, sleeping in a bed for once, it's still nerve-wracking to be in a room with a total stranger she doesn't know, despite his insistence that she can trust him.

Her stomach clenches and her hand clasps the handle of the butter knife tighter from where she has it, hidden and tucked safely under the pillow. She'd taken it from the cart while he was distracted and he hadn't even noticed. He takes her arm that she has sat strategically on her forehead and lifts it, and it feels like a freezing ice block has slipped its way down her stomach. The instance he tries something funny on her, he's going to be in for a shock when she gets him with the knife. Only nothing happens. His fingers brush against her slender wrist, at her scars. Then he's placing her arm back down carefully. She hears his scuffled footsteps on the carpet as he retreats back to his armchair. Then that's that...

But then she's off, dreaming, not too soon after. Dreaming of him.

Him, crawling on his hands and knees against the pavement, trying to speak, trying to warn her to run, but the slit jugular prevents him from doing so. There's blood. Blood everywhere. His throat strangely misshapen, blood dripping everywhere. Moaning to her, _run, run now_, trying to tell her to run. So she does, she runs, fighting against the fear paralyzing her. And then she wakes up, bathed in sweat, in a strange room, in a strange bed, her heart the only thing she can hear pounding in her ears.

Liz sits up slowly, telling herself to calm down. It's just a nightmare. Another nightmare. Another one of the many that she's had like it, only this time, it doesn't feature her regular haunt, of flames and humidity. The pungent scent of burning plastic.

A lamps on in the hotel room, providing the only small source of light. Then she sees him, Red, still where he was, sitting in the armchair. Only he's dozing. It must be in the early hours of the morning, and sleep has finally called to him. She hears him snoring, making faint, deep noises of distress. Apparently Liz isn't the only one who suffers from night terrors. The book he has been reading slides down off his lap, _thudding_ against the carpet. And then Red is jerking awake almost instantly at the sound of it, stirring, and his eyes meet hers from where she is, wide-awake and alert, sitting fearfully up on the bed.

His eyes are half-lidded as he blinks and squints at her. "Are you all right?" he asks gently, his voice thick from sleep.

Liz feels her throat tighten up at his question. "Yeah, I... I'm fine. I just had a nightmare. It's nothing new for me, though."

"Well, it was exactly only just that: A nightmare. You're fine, and you're safe here." Somehow she gathers the impression he is saying that to reassure himself as well. "What are your nightmares about?"

It surprises her; Him bothering to even ask about them. She doesn't like the relief that overcomes her, how touched she feels, that he is asking. "Well, I... I had a friend. His name was... Frank." Truthfully, she hadn't known the man's name at the time. They hadn't bothered to ask each other what their names were, but Liz just assumed to call him Frank at the time. He was stuck in the same situation she was; he had been out on the street at an incredibly young age, had a sordid past and battled his own addictions and due to that common ground they shared, they had become friends, in the loosest term of the word. "We met one day, we were both out on the streets, and we just followed each other around, and we'd look out for each other. But he got involved with a bad group of people, and he... he owed them."

"And so what happened to this friend of yours? This... Frank?"

"One night, I was sleeping. We'd take it in turns; One of us would watch out while the other slept in case someone tried anything on us. I woke up to all of these noises, and these people, they had somehow tracked him down. And there was just... _all this blood_, everywhere." She unravels then, and it just happens. She bursts into silent tears, but its somehow relieving on her, to cry for him, to cry for what she had seen happen to him. "_So much blood_. And he was dying right before my eyes and... I... I couldn't do anything to help him." She lifts her hands helplessly. "He just... he told me to run, and _all the blood_... they'd slit his throat, cut him up. He was trying to crawl to me, to get me to run." She can still smell the blood in the air, the metallic tang. She can still hear his moans, as if it was happening all over again. "I never did anything to help him, and I hate that about myself the most," she admits, inhaling in a shuddering breath. "I just took his advice and I ran, and I left him there to die, I left him there to just bleed out against the pavement, in probably what is... the most painful way to cark it."

Red nods at her story, his eyes creased and expression somewhat sympathetic to her, and just like that, she immediately wishes she hadn't been so eager to disclose of the story to him. She wasn't doing it to earn herself some pity from him, after all.

"And so that's what my nightmares are about," she continues after a moment, trying to make her voice sound more carefree, more positive. "Just the same old things, time and time again. They just... they never seem to go away." An awkward silence passes between them, where this Red simply stares at her deeply. She feels fresh tears trickle down her eyes, and she lifts her hand, wiping them away hurriedly with her fingers. "So what's yours about? Your nightmares? Let's hear some stories of yours now."

He finally tears his eyes away from her, huffing out a short, self-depreciating laugh. "Oh, I'd prefer not to."

"Why not? You don't think I could handle it?"

"Not at all. I'm just not sure _I _could handle it. Some things are best kept quiet, and not spoken or repeated of, to anyone." He adds quickly, returning his eyes to her, "But thank you."

"For what?" she whispers, confused.

"For telling me and being honest, despite how hard it must be for you, having to repeat what happened, with Frank. One can only just imagine how... traumatic that must have been for you, to have to witness a friend dying before you. I've lost many people throughout the years and I know, from experience myself, that it never gets any easier." Red stares at her for another silent moment, then she sees his eyes flit down to her arms, something unidentifiable coming across his expression. "I couldn't help noticing what you have there." He tilts his chin slightly, indicating her arms. "On your arms and wrists. How did you come about them? All of those... scars?"

Liz can feel herself immediately tensing up, closing up inside. She had been sure she had felt him awake and moving near her at the bed. She mustn't have been imagining him touching and lifting her arm then, however many hours ago it was. Now she realized why he had. Had he been inspecting the scars? But by the way his tone is when he asks the question, it's obvious he already knows the answer. She supposes he just wants her to say it, to confirm his suspicions. He's playing dumb with her; She can see it in his eyes, that he knows how she really came to get them already. He's just waiting for her to say it out loud.

"What are we doing right now?" she asks aloud wonderingly. There is singing spite in her voice, and she laughs shortly. "Are we really doing this? What; are we playing doctor-patient now?" She laughs again, deliberately placing her arms under the covers, wrapping them over her knees tightly. "I think you already know how I came about them; You just want me to say it."

"Yes," Red affirms quietly. His eyes are piercing, arresting. "Yes, I want you to say it."

"I've had my fair share of suicidal tendencies over the years. There, happy to hear me say it?" He looks anything but. "I've attempted to off myself a couple of times so that is where the scars are from, some of them." She doesn't feel embarrassed sharing that at all; She doesn't feel sad, or ashamed. She feels nothing. Absolutely nothing. "I've cut myself. I've... self-harmed. Whatever you want to call it, I've done it."

"Why? Simply because you enjoy the pain?" He shakes his head slightly, his lips parting. It doesn't appear as if he is making a harsh or unfavorable judgment of her, at least, so that makes her feel slightly better. He merely seems as if he is trying to understand the reason behind it all. Liz finds it ridiculous the man doesn't already truly know. "Because it makes you feel... alive? The pain and the... bleeding?"

Liz licks her lips, peering away from him for a moment, focusing on a shadow on the wall.

One hand under the blanket glides along her wrist, fingers feeling out the bumps and raised lines on her skin. "No, it wasn't because of... any of that. I didn't do it because I wanted to feel alive or because I enjoyed the pain on some level. I honestly just..." She pauses for a moment, narrowing her eyes, wondering how to say it best in words. Then she decides she might as well just be brutally honest and say it how it is, no sugar-coating. "I honestly wanted to die, at the time. Only I just... I never cut deep enough."

She shrugs, turning her eyes back on the man in the armchair again. His eyes stare deeply into hers, unblinking. He looks sorry for her, sympathetic, but really, she doesn't want all of that. She doesn't want his pity, not at all.

"I suppose, _maybe_, there was a part of me, deep down inside, that was... frightened of the idea of dying. Maybe I subconsciously never cut deep enough or hard enough? I don't know. But this was about after... after Frank. After I saw what happened with Frank, how bad I felt that I hadn't helped him and that I'd just ran and saved my own skin, all the nightmares, as well as... a whole lot of other reasons." Since he is making her talk about it, she can't seem to stop. And perhaps its liberating? Getting it all off her chest? She has kept it to herself for so long, it was only bound to burst out of her eventually. "Life just hasn't turned out the way I thought it would be. You know, I thought I'd be married by now. Married with a husband and we'd be starting a family, and we'd have a nice house with the whole... white picket fence thing."

She smiles slightly. She'd imagined her life so differently from how it is now.

"Sometimes I'd have nice dreams about it and then I'd wake up and realize it was just a dream, that this is the cruel reality. I've accomplished nothing and I have... nothing. I know that if I died, no one would miss me. My life has officially turned to shit." She sighs heavily. "I suppose, all that was why I tried to kill myself those couple of times. Life has just turned to shit and I have nothing, I'm nobody, I'm so far from what I thought I would be. And then there's the hunger, there's Frank dying and me saving my own skin, there's the shame... there's_ everything_. Death had just seemed the best solution at the time and so I... cut." Finally, she brings herself to look at Red again. Still, he is watching her, unblinking, literally hanging off her every word. And she can't pretend it isn't nice; It's nice to have someone there to listen to her, even if she is moping and prattling on to her hearts content. "And then _you_ come along today, and _here I am_, in this room with you, and I _don't even know_ you. But you want to know something?"

"What, Lizzie?" His voice is hardly audible, it's so deep and low.

"Part of me _is_ hoping that this will turn out badly. I took my chances, and you're practically a stranger. You could do anything to me; Murder me, torture me. Rape me, even." She spots the muscle under his eyelid twitch at her words. "And you want to know what's truly sick? It's that there is some part of me, _deep down_ inside, that hopes that you will. There is a part of me that _hopes_ that you will end up murdering me, putting an end to me and my _pathetic nothing life_, because... I think I've worked out with all of my unsuccessful suicide attempts, that I can't do it alone. I'm not... strong enough to do it myself, and _maybe I'm hoping_ you'll do it for me?" Even as she utters it, she knows she isn't coming across as exactly the most sane nor sound person in the world. Yet she just can't bring herself to care. She's way past caring. "I can be reckless and impulsive and take dangerous chances and get myself into bad situations, but... maybe that's because I want the worst of it? Maybe I'm just waiting for someone who is kind enough to put me out of my misery, seeing as I'm so incompetent as to do it myself?"

She realizes then just how much so she is unsettling him by sprouting out how she feels with no apology whatsoever. She knows she probably sounds insane to him, but she's thought about this. A lot; probably more than what is considered healthy of her. The embarrassment, the shame of spilling her guts out to this man hits her so suddenly and overdue, that she bursts out laughing sadly at herself. Then she realizes she isn't so much laughing, but that she's crying. She's actually sobbing, and it's mortifying to be doing it in front of him.

"God, I sound like such a horrible person, don't I?" she gets out weakly. "I sound so messed up. But I am." Lifting her arms out of the blanket, she waves them at herself pitifully. "I am _really, truly_ messed up. I _am_, aren't I?"

Before Liz even can completely comprehend what is happening, Red is there, sitting on the bed beside her, an arm coming around her, pulling and holding her in close to him. Her cheek rests against the open collar of his shirt, his skin warm. He both smells and feels safe to her. How ironic; She barely knows the man at all, but she's relieved_, so very relieved,_ that at least someone is comforting her for once, hushing her as she cries silently and trembles.

"You're going to be all right," she hears him assure her soothingly, stroking the back of her hair with his hand, kissing her on the temple of her forehead. His closeness despite hardly knowing him stuns her for a moment but she closes her eyes tightly, telling herself to just let it be. "I know it mightn't seem that way right now- that everything is bad and that the world is a terrible place- but everything is going to work out the way it is supposed to, I assure you."

She'll regret in the morning, letting her vulnerable side peek through, letting herself become so exposed and open to someone else.

**A/N: Hope this one wasn't bad? Hope you guys are all well and happy. :)  
As usual, I would love to know your thoughts. This is probably way out of character and AU, sorry. Thank you!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with the Blacklist obviously. Just a big fan.**

**Thank you guys so much, I apologize for not updating in a while on this. Been sick with the flu currently, so I thought I might as well try to pick up on getting more chapters updated on this while I rested. Thank you so much for your reviews and the alerts I have received, its so kind. And I apologize for this being so slow; It'll pick up speed and more of a story will be involved. :) I hope you enjoy, and would love to know your thoughts!**

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**Chapter 7**

When Liz wakes the next morning, she turns on her side, almost expecting Red to still be where he was posted all last night, in the antique armchair. Only, much to her equal surprise and confusion, he's not there. When she peers around the room, calling his name several times quietly, it occurs to her that the man has cleared out. He's nowhere in the room. Just when she is starting to panic and get to thinking he has up and left her, she spots the handwritten note on the bedside table near her.

She reaches over to pick it up curiously, inspecting the neatly-written handwriting.

_"Get dressed into clean fresh clothes, then come downstairs."_

She rereads it two more times, then scoffs to herself. It's definitely from Red. "Bossy, much?" she grumbles under her breath.

Then she forces herself out of the tangled bed-sheets, her body protesting against it. She gets changed into another short-sleeved shirt, which feels even more baggier on her than the last. She can't be bothered trying to find different trousers from inside the grocery bags so she settles on still wearing the light grey track pants that she had previously slept in. She retrieves her old shoes, sitting on the edge of the bed while slipping them on and tying the laces up. Then as she stands, she peers down at the messy unmade bed uncertainly. Will he expect her to make the bed up neatly, too?

Deciding to hell with, she leaves the bed as it is, ruffled and unmade, as she heads into the bathroom quickly to make herself look at least somewhat decent. Leaning over the sink, she cups cool water in her hands and scrubs her face to wake herself up properly, then she attempts to neaten the lankiness of her uncombed hair with her fingers. It's really no use and, without any makeup, there's no concealing the dark circles that stick out under her eyes, or the too-pale skin.

When she heads out of the room and into the narrow hallway of the hotel, for a second she can't remember the directions into getting to ground level. Then she finds the elevator and her mind is made up for her. She rides the elevator down to the ground floor, then has to ask someone from behind the reception desk into the location of where people usually sit to eat their complimentary breakfasts, if not being delivered to their rooms.

After the man from behind the reception desk gives her directions, she follows them, heading straight for a double-door entryway.

Pushing through them, the passageway opens up to a large and spacious room, where already, people are up and about this early in the morning, eating large plates of breakfast and reading the days additions of the newspapers. Loud murmurs of pleasant chatter fill the room, among with the sounds of cutlery scraping against china plates. There's a big buffet table filled with a selection of breakfast foods, from scrambled eggs, to dinner rolls and various other foods she isn't sure the name of. There's a big selection of coffee brands, teas, and hot chocolates available.

These people don't know half a damn about living out on the street and very nearly starving on a daily basis, Liz thinks to herself. They know nothing about hardship, or about how difficult it is to sleep in a cold alleyway somewhere, with not knowing where your next meal would come from or whether it would be your very last. A swell of bitterness creeps up in her gut and Liz decides then that she hates every single person sitting in the room stuffing their faces. Pretentious holier-than-thou snobs, the whole lot of them.

That bitterness in her chest recedes slightly when Liz's eyes land on Red. Already, he's at a table, days addition of the newspaper in front of him, his friend Dembe sitting next to him. After him putting up with her hysterics late last night, comforting her when she cried and making her feel better, he had changed in her view, if slightly. It had been embarrassing, laying all of her heart out on the line to somebody she barely knows, confessing to them how messed-up she was. She finds she's eager to put it behind her and pretend as if it never happened.

Once she reaches the table, she passes his shoulder, snatching the pen sitting on the table near a steaming cup of tea without him so much as noticing. She carries it with her to one of the vacant seats. He tosses the newspaper down flat on the table to peer over at her through the round disks of the glasses he is wearing.

"At last, it emerges!" He says flamboyantly when she pulls back the chair across the table from him to sit, fiddling with the ballpoint pen in her lap with her fingers.

"Wow. Are you really referring to me as 'it'?"

"Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah, great actually." She takes in a deep breath. "After what happened, our talk..." She finds she can't look his way, so she keeps her eyes low on the pen. "I woke up a couple of more times during the night, forgetting where I was. I guess its just so... nice to sleep in a warm bed for once. You?"

"Well, I for one, have certainly had better nights." Flipping the pages over to the section of crossword puzzles, she watches him with a tinge of amusement as he lifts up the paper, looking around. He makes a deep noise in frustration. "Now where the hell has that gone?"

"Looking for something?" Liz holds the pen up, dangling it in the air between her fingers smugly. He levels a somewhat scolding look on her, disappointingly unimpressed, and Liz chucks the pen on the table at him. Proud, she leans both elbows on the table. "So, what's on the agenda for today? What's happening?" she asks curiously, watching him start with filling out the crossword puzzle, his expression absorbed, concentrated.

"Actually, I have business to attend to, alone. I'll be gone for a couple of hours, hence why I booked you into a hairdresser's close to here," he explains measurably, without looking up at her, his pen scribbling furiously on the boxes on the crossword. "You'll be getting pampered and preened, Lizzie, something that you'll no doubt enjoy. Manicure, eyebrow wax, haircut. The whole lot."

Liz's eyebrows raise. "You booked me into a salon to get all of that done?" she asks, stumped. She wasn't expecting that.

Finally, he glances up at her, his expression serious. "I have, yes."

"Okay. Why? So what's wrong with the way I am?"

He laughs humorlessly. "Well, that's really a loaded question. I'm not sure if you're aware, but a monobrow like the one you are rocking is no longer fashionable for women of this decade."

She doesn't know whether to laugh or whether to get truly insulted. "I have a monobrow?"

"Yes. And a disgraceful one, at that. Not to worry; Once they are done with you, you won't know what to do with yourself, Lizzie. You will feel as if you are a new person, and your confidence will soar. Which, in all things considered, seems precisely what you need."

"Oh, I'm sure," she says, kind of mumbling. "I still don't get why you're doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Why it is that you're being so... so nice to me?"

Comprehension filters slowly across his face as he lifts his head from the paper to glance at her again. "We'll get to that later, Lizzie." Folding the newspaper up, he stands abruptly, taking a fedora from his friend Dembe and placing it on his head. "As for now, we have to get moving if we want to make your appointment in time. Shall we?"

When she stands and Red offers her his arm, she slides her hand through his arm before starting on the walk with him. The beauty parlor is barely five minutes away, out on the main street, filled and busy with clients despite its smallness. Liz can hardly remember the last time she had gone to get something so simple as her hair trimmed. Given how long it had been in between washes of her hair, she was willing to bet it was in pretty lousy condition.

When a tall, attractive woman approaches them from behind the reception counter, Liz sees the way she scans her from head-to-toe in a disturbingly judgmental way, before fixing her eyes on Red.

"Can I help you, sir?" Her eyes flicker up and down his suit appreciatively. "Do you have an appointment?"

"Actually, its for Lizzie, over here," Red says, jerking his chin into her direction. "I've made her an appointment for the full works."

"Oh, yes. She looks like she badly needs it, doesn't she?" The woman tuts her tongue at Liz as if she's a child that inspires sympathy. "Well, she's in good hands with us, sir. Don't you worry."

"Oh, I'm sure she is, with such an exotically gorgeous woman as yourself. You look hardly a day over twenty five. And that dress!" The woman starts fanning a hand over her face at his words, laughing and flustered.

Liz's brows arch in surprise when the woman takes it one step further in moving closer to press a kiss on his cheek, then she feels something else slip its way in. Bitterness. A surge of anger. Red's words for the woman are so charming and fake that it makes Liz feel like gagging.

"Well, I'll leave you here then, Lizzie. I'll be back in two hours at the most. If you don't want to meet me in here, then just meet me outside right by the door, at the very least."

Just as she's slipping her hand out from the crook of his elbow, Liz has a malicious idea form.

Without really knowing what she is doing, or why the woman's obvious attempts at flirting with him grates on her nerves so profoundly, she takes hold of the back of his neck before leaning up on her tiptoes to press a prolonged kiss against Red's mouth, the brim of his beige fedora colliding with her forehead.

The shock of her doing such an impulsive thing is shown in the way his lips remain still against hers, and a low humming noise escapes his throat, before Liz forces herself to pull back and smile up at him. They are still pretty much strangers; She knows nothing about the man, yet the woman can't possibly know that. For all the woman knows, they could be long-time lovers, despite the somewhat lengthy age bracket.

So, hamming it up, Liz says in as seductive a voice as she can while brushing her knuckles against his cheek, "Don't you go away for too long, will you?" while Red looks something closely resembling dumbfounded.

As she looks back at the woman in front of her, she sees the rude look of disbelief that she gives her before glancing away quickly. Wickedly satisfied, Liz follows the woman towards an empty chair in the salon to make a start on getting pampered.

While sitting, Liz watches the elegant woman's reflection through the mirror as she slips a plastic cape around her shoulders, spreading her hair out. "Wow, that's nice," she hears the woman gush quietly, meeting her eyes in the mirror while starting to comb out Liz's hair.

The comb gets caught in a few knots, but other than that painful side of it, Liz realizes that Red may actually be right. It is nice to just sit back and get pampered, for once. Not that she's ever done it before. Even getting her hair done was a mere luxury she hadn't been able to afford.

"What is?"

"A father spoiling his daughter so much. Bet he treats you like his princess." The woman smiles down at her conspiratorially.

Another unfamiliar bitterness stabs through Liz. "Oh, he's not my father, but that's sweet of you to think that," she says casually, keeping her eyes on the woman's face and nothing else. She doesn't want to miss this, not for one second. She's enjoying it too much. "He's actually my lover." The woman gives her a look that seems both scandalized and embarrassed over making the quick assumption that they were related, and that wicked enjoyment in Liz soars roof-high. "Or my sugar daddy, you could even say. He's loaded. He pays for literally everything."

"Oh." The woman's face goes red. "Sorry for the mistake. He just, uh, seemed-"

"-Older? Yeah, but I've always gone for the older, mature men personally myself."

Liz has to fight back a smile when the snotty woman purposefully avoids her eyes while brushing out another knot as the comb snags through it. Fortunately for her, the woman remains quiet for a couple of minutes.

Then as she's spraying what seems to be water into Liz's hair to dampen it, she says, "When was the last time you've gotten your hair cut exactly? I can't remember you saying."

Liz winces, dreading having to answer. "Um, it's been about... fifteen years, I'd say. It's been an extremely long time since I've been able to."

The look of sheer shock on the woman's face makes her feel almost ashamed of herself. "Yeah, you can really tell," the woman says, not bothering to remain polite. "I'm sorry but your hair is in really bad condition. I suppose it's lucky you came to us now. We'll sort that problem out quite easily."

"Yes, _I am so_ lucky that I found your beauty shop, aren't I?" Liz says, in the flattest voice she can muster. "I mean, this is such life saving work you people do here."

Liz is used to saying quick-hitting remarks without thought, so she feels herself redden slightly as the woman fixes another strange look onto her. Lately, showing tact hasn't been one of Liz's finer points, but she vows right there and then to keep quiet for the rest of the ordeal.

An hour later, her hair has been trimmed to a startlingly shorter length just inches under her shoulder-blades and the woman has already called another employee over, called Corrine, who gets started on her nails.

Despite the bitchiness of the women, Liz actually finds herself enjoying the whole process; In sitting in a seat while being fussed over, getting her nails soaked and then painted a clear glossy color.

Then the part she is dreading, most of all, arrives; The eyebrow wax. Laying in another room on her back on a recliner chair while she has moderately hot wax applied to her eyebrows isn't the most enjoyable thing in the world. After its done, her eyebrows sting and her eyes water but it isn't as excruciating a process as she was expecting.

"Oh, wow," the annoying woman that had cut her hair says after Liz steps back out of the room, observing her newly shaped and waxed eyebrows contemplatively, a hand resting on her hip. "Hasn't that done wonders for her, Corrine? Doesn't she look so much better and... and polished?"

It's like she's a senseless, stray and scrawny kitten with all of these older cats fussing over her.

"Yeah, you look so much better," another employee speaks up, her voice superficially bright and bubbly. "It's amazing how much more that haircut brings out your features, too." Her dark brown eyes roam down Liz's baggy clothes while she chews on a piece of bubblegum noisily. "Now you just need a hot, new little outfit to compliment your new look!"

She can feel herself shutting down, that already thin thread about to snap. Her jaw tenses, her hands start to shake.

"Yeah, thank you," she manages to get out as politely as possible. "I feel fabulous, like I'm a new person."

"Well, that's great. We're so happy to be of help." Like they've done her a great courtesy.

"Yeah, just go to hell, all of you," she spits out between her teeth, striding off towards the front door furiously.

She wrenches it open and steps out into the street, pedestrians coming into focus.

The morning sun is bright. Too bright, in fact. Her eyes smart and strain against it and as she looks off into the opposite direction, she sees a man standing around, unlit cigarette hanging between his lips. He puts a lighter near it, flicks it on to light his cigarette, and that's when it starts to settle in and take over, all due to such a simple yet harmless act in lighting up a cigarette. The flame.

A feeling of sheer helplessness attacks her. She wants to turn, to run and flee due to the sight of it, only she's unable to. She can't seem to feel her legs. Paralyzed. Her heart races, to the point where the noises around her seem to dull. She hears the blood rushing to her ears, her inhalations and exhalations the only thing she's completely aware of. She's dying. Any second now, she's going to keel over and die. Not enough oxygen is getting in.

She can't escape it. She can't run or hide, find somewhere safe for coverage. A closet. Under a table. It's suffocating her, taking over her body.

Her legs start to feel shaky next so she stretches out a hand, feeling out for the nearest thing she can find. Her fingers come into contact with a hard, concrete wall, and she lets herself sag against it; her shoulder supporting herself upright.

That rushing of blood in her ears is still there, constant and steady like a stream of water, a rushing of waves crashing together. Then it comes, always the worst part when suffering her attacks. A blood-curdling, little girl's scream tears through all the noise, piercing and frightened.

Her nostrils sting. Her throat closes up. Smoke. Smoke suffocating her. Pungent plastic as her toy dolls melt. Curtains and the fabric on the carpet singeing.

She's dying. This is going to be the end.

The scream gets even louder and she covers both ears with her palms flat against them, shivering violently as she huddles against the concrete wall. Liz closes her eyes, chanting to herself, _This isn't real. I'm not dying. I'm fine. This isn't happening right now..._

A strangled sob breaks through the little girl's wails, and then she very nearly jumps out of her skin when someone's warm hand reaches out, touching her by the elbow. Their thumb moves against her skin in a somewhat calming, repetitive motion, and when she forces her eyes open, turning towards that bit of comforting contact, she glances up. Its Red.

Red standing there, compassionate confusion written all over his face. He's back from doing his business. He's returned. All is safe again.

His mouth parts and he says something, only she can't make out the sounds. The crashing waves are still there. The ringing in her ears, the thumping heart.

Without really understanding why, she gravitates towards him, mashing the side of her face into the fabric of his vest. His arms come around her in a tight embrace, she feels his chin rest on top of her scalp, and its the most peaceful thing in the world. That harmless bit of reassuring human contact. Usually she finds another persons touch unwanted and intrusive, but with Red, she learns it is different.

She's safe now. She isn't back there, a helpless child. She's safe. There's no fire, no danger. Anything.

She doesn't know how long she stands there, warm in his arms like that little girl she once was again. All she knows is that it seems to work wonders. Usually, she's had to ride it all out on her own, and deal with the anguish and exhaustion that comes on both mentally and physically by herself.

No matter how many times it happens, the attacks, she still can't seem to be able to talk herself out of them, to convince herself that she's perfectly safe where she is. Maybe this is what she has been missing out on, all those times? The noises start to die down, partly due to the way Red keeps using his hand to brush her hair, stroking, caressing. He's probably unknowingly centering her back down into the present, into the here and now, out in a suburban street. Liz realizes that this is exactly the distraction she needs to bring herself out of her attacks; That repetitive, real motion of someone holding her tight, and grounding her. Bringing her back down to what is the true reality.

Once it has seemed to completely pass and she feels almost back to rights again, she lifts her head out from his chest, fixing her eyes on Red's. Moving back slightly but still holding her at arms length, he inspects her face carefully, something resembling true concern glistening away in his green eyes for her. He tucks a strand of her hair behind her earlobe with care.

"Are you all right, sweetheart?" he asks her gently, after what seems a very long moment has passed.

It takes Liz a long while to regain use of her voice.

When she does, the words are almost slurred, jumbled. "Y-yeah, I'm... I'm fine. Sorry." With a strange reluctance on her part, she makes herself move away, stepping out of his embrace. The feeling in her legs have seemed to return, but she feels clammy. Weak. "I just flipped out for a moment there. It's nothing." Trying to brush it off casually so he doesn't start assuming she's completely insane, she shrugs with a forced laugh. "Sorry, it just happens for me sometimes. Sometimes I get like this."

Much to her uneasiness, Red doesn't appear as if he is going to let it drop so easily. He stares at her attentively, his head tilted to the side. "This has happened to you before? Just what happens for you exactly?"

At least he doesn't sound in any way as if he is judging her. He simply sounds... both worried and curious. As if he's trying to understand, just like he had last night over her self-harm incidents.

"Really, it's nothing. Something just happened when I was younger and I... I suppose that's where most of my issues stem from. I just... I have attacks sometimes. Certain things trigger it and sometimes it happens basically out of nowhere." Hating yet again how easy it is for her to bear herself to him, issues, self-harm history and all, she tries to figure out a way to stir the topic elsewhere. "Anyway, I appreciate my new hair, nails, and eyebrows," she says nervously, assuming that's what women say after a good pampering session. "I've never done that before, as you no doubt already know. And you were completely right, of course; I do feel like a new person. Too bad the people in that place were flaming judgmental assholes, but really, what can you do about that, right?"

"Language," he scolds quietly.

Liz finds she can breathe a lot easier when it seems his attention is diverted away from her panic attack. Red steps back to take all of her in, from her new shorter haircut, to her nails and her shaped and waxed eyebrows. Trying to seem like that bubbly, dim-witted woman in the salon, she holds her hands out to him, twiddling her fingers. "So what do you think? Do I look pathetic or what?"

"Oh, pathetic is hardly the word." He looks at her in a kind of funny way, chewing the inside of his cheek. "You look... fantastic, Lizzie." His voice and eyes warm up in a staggering way. "And with some new, decent clothes, even more so. We'll have to keep you away from the olives and earth tones. Get you into some brights; Reds, blues, greens and oranges, maybe. Bring out the lovely color of your eyes."

"I look fantastic? Meaning that I truly looked absolutely pathetic the way I was before?" She can't help the defensive, cynical, and bitter edge that has crept into her tone of voice. It's been ingrained into her for so long, its practically natural. "That's what you're truly trying to say between the lines, right?"

"No, not at all," Red corrects her sharply. "You're misconstruing my words."

"Oh, am I? Am I misconstruing your words, Red?"

His jaw clenches then slackens. "Yes, you are," he insists quietly. "You look fantastic. With the right clothes, positively radiant and glowing."

Liz isn't one to beam over a compliment. "Whatever." Instead of taking his compliment in, she bats it off with a shrug. "So when are you gonna give me my money? You haven't given me it yet." She hates to sound rude, but its true. He hasn't given her the money he had promised to give her, as part of their arrangement. "Have you forgotten already?"

"How ironic," Red says wryly. "You've been living out on the street with nothing to your name, and yet, you seem to have such an unhealthy obsession with money. You have money on the brain, Lizzie."

"No, I'm not unhealthily preoccupied with money," she retorts honestly. "I just know how to make sure I get what's owed to me. I wanna make sure I'm not getting scammed here. And you did promise me money for every night I stay with you in one of your hotel rooms, right?"

"Yes, and you'll get your money soon enough. But as for now, we have other plans." Without her permission, he takes hold of her wrist, pulling it up towards his arm so that she can grasp hold onto his elbow as they walk. "We're going to go shopping."

"Oh, great," she mutters without enthusiasm. "More shopping and more pretentious assholes to have to deal with."

Red makes a low, discouraging noise from at the back of his throat. "What is it with you and the word 'asshole'?"

"Well, it's true. There's a whole lot of assholes out there in the world."

Their next destination is a small department store which boasts itself in selling the most finest and expensive women's wear. Liz reluctantly lets her benefactor pull the reigns in rummaging around, inspecting various articles of clothing on the racks that he judges fit for her liking.

Since he is practically her main supplier of income right now, Liz figures she shouldn't be too picky. She still doesn't understand many things about him, like where he gets his money from, but there's evidence there that he's clearly a very wealthy man.

Just like before, women seem to like him. The instance they had pushed through the double doors of the store, one of the women that worked there was all over him like a rash. Liz supposed she couldn't exactly blame them; He was handsome, in his own right. Especially with the way he dressed and how he oozed effortless charisma, power, and wealth.

She caught herself feeling strangely inadequate however, with how he interacted with the other women in comparison to her, almost as if Liz was a pitiful excuse for a female, and not a full-grown, attractive woman. It wasn't every day a man of his caliber would want to associate with her, virtually a drifter; let alone lavish her with fine gifts and treat her with the dignity and respect everyone else seemed to get, in life. It occurred to her that she was feeling rather possessive of him, despite hardly knowing anything about the man. She loathe the thought of another woman taking the limelight off of her from him.

Yet, while he may have seemed absorbed in chatting to the women, fortunately his attention seemed mostly directed at Liz. He'd look her way more often than she could count, either in the middle of a conversation or when perusing aisles of racks, as if reassuring himself that she was still there in the store with him. And when he did take notice of her, he seemed to relax a little, every single time. It was something Liz couldn't get her head around; She still had no idea what his true intentions were for her, yet he was treating her amazingly well. If he was just luring her in so that he could both screw her and hurt her later, it wasn't showing.

She was talked into trying on a few dresses, shirts, and skirts, which Liz was hardly in the mood for.

It occurred to her that she probably wasn't like most women, in the sense that every one else around her seemed so fashion forward and superficial. The selection of clothes that both Red and the woman had talked her into trying on seemed way out of her style, as if they didn't seem to fit her body or the type of person she was. Yet as she stood out of the change room to show the pair of them what the clothes looked like on, Liz was startled by the amount of enthusiasm and praise she received.

"Mouthwatering," Red says vehemently when she tries on what had to have been her fifth dress. "Wow."

Looking at it in the mirror, she hadn't been so certain; The style and cut of the dress seemed as though it didn't suit her body type, that it was more for someone voluptuous with more meat on their bones. It was a baby blue strap dress which flared at the hips with the ruffled fabric, the neckline plunging. The scars and bruises on her arms made her feel self-conscious and as if she wanted to suggest something with actual long sleeves, yet both Red and the woman that worked in the store looked uncomprehendingly amazed.

She rotates around on the spot, her eyebrows arched uncertainly in question. "You sure about this one?"

"Yes, that is most definitely the type of dress for you, Lizzie," Red says strongly, butting through the woman that was about to answer also. Truth be told, Liz was finding his praise more valuable and meaningful than the woman's. "You look absolutely beautiful. Mouthwatering, in that dress."

He sounds sincere, something that takes her a long moment to get over the shock of. No one has ever really referred to her as that before. Both beautiful, and mouthwatering. She tries not to beam like an idiot. "Okay, great," she says, embarrassingly breathless. "This dress gets the green-light then."

Finally, after a few other clothes were tried on, they were finished. Their clothes-shopping outing was complete.

As the woman scans all of the price-tags for the clothes and bags them with care, Liz feels the breath knock out of her lungs when she sees how much the total cost is for the clothes. One thousand, three hundred.

She looks Red's way anxiously, but he hardly seems bothered in the slightest. He has only just removed his credit card from inside his wallet when she says urgently, "Wait, we can put something back. I don't expect you to pay that much for me, and certainly not for just only nine articles of clothing. I'm sorry, but that's ludicrous. I can-"

He puts a placating hand up in the air, a small smile on his lips. "Nonsense, don't be silly, Lizzie. It's more than worth it."

"No, Red. I don't expect you to buy me over a thousand bucks worth of clothing that I probably would only end up wearing once. Besides, you're already giving me money and helping me out enough as it is in letting me stay with you. Let me just put something back." Her heart deflates when Red hands the credit card over to the woman, disregarding her words. "Please, Red, I-"

"-Calm down, Lizzie. And don't worry; You'll still get your money, if that's what you're so frazzled about?"

Her mouth flops open, her brows furrowing. "No, it's not that at all. Please I-"

"-Ssh, you stress too much."

Falling silent, Liz can do nothing else but surrender.

"And besides, I know some way that you can make it up to me later," he adds carelessly, shoving his wallet safely back inside the pocket in his inner jacket.

Some way that she can make it up to him with later? She doesn't like the sound of that, at all. Her heart races anxiously as she helps him with carrying all of the shopping bags quickly. Once they are back outside on the street, she peers over at his face nervously while clinging onto his elbow with her hand again as they walk. All of those fancy clothes had added up to over one thousand dollars. What would Red possibly want in repayment for that? What would he find a fitting reimbursement?

"What you said in there," she starts, dodging past a pedestrian, "About you finding some way for me to repay you. What do you mean by that exactly?" She tries to analyse his expression, work out where he is going with it all. Only his face gives off no telling sign or explanation of what it is that he has in mind for her. "You mean some kind of... favor for you?"

"Yes, you could certainly put it that way. We'll talk about this back in the hotel. Now isn't the right time."

"Right. And what type of favor, exactly?" She feels ice-cold dread pulse through her. "Sexual?" she guesses unevenly. "Do you mean by sexual favors? Is that what you mean?" A frisson of irritation hits her, "Because if so, I thought I had made myself perfectly clear? I don't suck people off, or anything like that. I'm no prostitute, Red. Even with you, I'm not gonna be making any exceptions. I have standards."

He flinches at her words with a slight shake to his head, like she's being ridiculous. "While you're my type, I don't mean a favor of that particular kind, Lizzie. More so of the... utilizing your skills kind of favor."

"Utilizing my skills? What skills?" A breathless, sardonic laugh escapes her. "I wasn't aware I had any particular skills that could come in handy?"

"Your sticky fingers is more along the lines of what I mean, Lizzie." He turns his head to look at her in a earnest and sincere way that leaves no room for her to doubt. "Your little talent for thieving. But, as I said, we'll talk this over more privately in the hotel room."

** I do hope this is okay and that you are still interested in reading? Would love to know :) I know it's hugely AU, and Liz is very damaged, but her past will be revealed soon. **


	8. Chapter 8

_**Disclaimer: As usual, I own nothing to do with the Blacklist. Just a fan doing this for her own entertainment while waiting for hiatus to end.**_

_**Thank you all so much for your lovely reviews, and alerts, that I have received. It means so much to me! I do hope you enjoy this one; Just working it up for next chapter.**_

* * *

_**Chapter Eight**_

Finally reaching the floor to the hotel room, Liz slips her hand out from elbow to enter the room first, carrying her shopping bags with her, which she quickly deposits on the unmade bed. She feels a surge of annoyance ripple through her when Red moves towards the telephone, possibly to call for room service. She finds herself impatient to know the catch of what he has said. Only it becomes obvious to her that Red is the type of man that likes to take these things slow and sweet.

Helping herself, she sits down on the edge of the couch, not bothering to get started on unpacking her clothes. She wouldn't know where to put them anyway, so she figures she might as well leave them as they are, in their shopping bags.

She busies herself in stroking her scar on her inner wrist with her fingers while watching Red say something in a low voice to someone on the other end of the line, her spine erect with sheer tension. When she sees him at last hang up the phone, she purposefully avoids his gaze, flexing and unflexing her fingers. She can hardly recognize her hands, of all things; It';s like they belong to somebody else, rather than her. She can hardly remember the time her fingernails had been so trimmed and groomed, with a professional, glossy finish. It's as if her hands aren't hers, but somebody else's.

"So?" she starts meaningfully.

"So, Lizzie?"

"So, how about we resume our conversation from earlier?" she asks in a low, irritated whisper. "There was something that you didn't want to tell me out in the open. Something about my... my sticky fingers and talent for thieving? I'm assuming there is a good reason for that, right?"

"Not yet," he says, his voice gentle yet with a fair amount of warning in it. "Let's wait until our room service arrives. I've ordered us something."

At the mere idea of him ordering something along the lines of food, Liz feels her stomach rumble. She hadn't eaten anything for breakfast, though she hardly felt in the mood to eat right now. Not while anxious and feeling left out in the dark as she is. But obliging, she forces herself to keep quiet, shifting slightly on the couch so that she is sitting back against it fully. She presses her lips together, her fingers finding her scar again.

A slight noise of a knock on the door brings an end to the stilted silence in the room.

"Ah, yes. Excellent," Red says happily, walking straight to the door to retrieve whatever it is he has ordered. "Thank you very much." When he returns after closing the door, he is carrying a bottle of wine tucked under one arm while holding two glasses in his hands. Apparently they're going to be drinking. "Chardonnay," Red explains, when seeming to notice her confused look. "I thought it would fit the situation."

"Situation? What situation is this exactly?"

He doesn't answer her, something that brings another surge of irritation filtering through her. When he places the wine bottle unopened on the table, as well as the glasses, he moves to the spot on the couch beside her. He takes off his fedora, hikes up his pants, and finally sits- a move that seems painfully slow on purpose to her.

"With what you did, with both my wallet and that pen. How did you learn to do that? Did someone teach you?"

Of all the things she is expecting him to ask as a conversation starter, Liz sure as hell isn't expecting that. It takes her a long minute to reorganize her thoughts. "No, I did. I simply taught myself."

"Oh, really?" He laughs; An infectious, head-tilting laugh that startles her. "You taught yourself?"

"Yeah, I did. Why is that so hard for you to believe?"

Shaking his head slightly, he meets her eyes again with a quick small smile. "It isn't hard for me to believe. I just wonder how one manages to teach themselves that. And why, no less."

"I've been living out on the street for very nearly over fourteen years now. I suppose, when you get to that point of being that desperate, you realize how... far you're willing to go in order to get something to eat. Or some... quick and easy money." She sets an elbow up on the sofa, thinking it over deeply, palm flat against the side of her cheek. It's funny; Not once did she ever dream she would be discussing matters like this, with anyone. But when she lets her gaze fall on Red's again, she sees how invested he is, how engaged. "Even if it means going against what you ultimately believe in, and your own... morals... you find, when you've reached that point, that you'll do very nearly anything you have to do in order to survive."

"Well, I suppose, when put that way, it is completely understandable. You have to do what you have to do in order to make ends meet."

"Exactly," she murmurs, pleased. "Of course, the first couple of times I did it, I felt despicable. I'm stealing someone's hard-earned money, or stealing some of their stuff instead of paying for it, you know? But then, it was really... the only option I had left. I started small, with candy bars and stuff like that from small stores with minimal surveillance, then gradually worked myself up to the big-time stuff, like taking wallets and money. Finally, I found something I was actually good at, for once."

His eyes move back and forth between hers intently, like she is a creature that inspires such deep fascination. It takes Liz's breath away; A man has never really looked at her like that before, as if she's worthy of getting to know on a deeper, more intimate, level. He doesn't even seem to care with her admitting all the bad things she has done, over the years, in illegally stealing and pocketing.

"And have you been caught yet?"

"Nope. Not even once." She can't help the significant amount of haughtiness in her tone. "I mean, sure. There have been some near misses with some cops, but I managed to pull one on them. I've managed to get away before they could do anything. Near misses, pretty much, though... I haven't been arrested as yet." Realizing yet again, how much she is bearing herself to this man, she forces herself to focus on something else. She looks away at the unmade bed for a moment, at the shopping bags piled on it, gnawing on a fingernail in order to buy herself some type. "So, I'm assuming there's a good reason that you're bothering to bring all of this up, right?" She swivels her eyes back to him questioningly. "And with that appointment you booked me into, at the salon? The haircut and all the... the fancy and expensive clothes?"

He dips his chin slightly, the corner of his mouth upturned. "Well, aren't you perceptive?" The comment is almost gentle, tender.

"I caught onto it the moment you mentioned the whole appointment thing, with the beauty salon. Why do I get the feeling that you're trying to groom me into something? Or to... prepare me for something, at the very least?" Sucking in a deep breath, she gets out hurriedly, "You said that there would be a way that I could pay you back. You aren't trying to merely be Mr. Good Samaritan. You want something, something that you feel only I can do for you. So what's this all really about?"

Red stares at her inscrutably for a moment longer before leaning over and picking up a manila folder, which he hands to her wordlessly. Her curiosity getting the better of her, Liz opens the folder. It's some type of printed document. A background check of a man she isn't familiar with. It even has the number needed to access his credit card. He already has over a million dollars in his account.

"Who's this? Well, aside from the obvious of him being loaded?"

"Who the man is and what he does for a living isn't something you need to be so concerned about, Lizzie. It isn't something you are required to know. But what I will tell you, is that he has something that belongs to me, something that I want, something he stubbornly outright refuses to give me."

"Money?" she guesses knowingly. "He owes you, and he hasn't given you your money back?"

"Yes, well done. Last time I saw him, I asked where my money was. And his response? He conveniently needed to go to the bathroom. Fifteen awfully long minutes later, I sent Dembe in to investigate- shove his head into the toilet, if need to be, to wake him up a little- and he was gone. According to one of the waiters, he had made a hasty retreat through the back exit. Haven't seen him again ever since."

"And now you're wanting me to nab his credit card so that you can get out a deposit of the money that's owed to you?"

"Yes. And, luckily for me, you're going to be my ace of spades, Lizzie. With your years of experienced thieving, I-"

"-I've only done it with small things, though," she says, letting her anxiety show. "Nothing big-time, like this before. You really think I could manage to pull something major like this off?"

"Undoubtedly, yes. After all, you managed with me, didn't you?"

"But that was different. I-"

"-Just think of this as you doing what you need to do in order to survive, as you usually do when you are doing something like this. He has a reservation booked at a restaurant downtown this evening, where Dembe will drive you to. From that point onward, you'll be operating alone in there until you secure his credit card. Do whatever you have to do necessary, just make sure you don't lure him outside with you. If he sees me or ascertains any assimilation between us, he will really make a move to scram then. Dembe and I will be waiting in the car. You bring his credit card back to us, then with it, we'll make him finally pay his dues."

Clearly it's a meticulous plan he has thought over, with her as lead cast in the ploy.

It'll be different, doing it for him and not for the sole intention of getting some easy money for food or supplies, but in retrospect, Red's right. It really is no different, doing it for Red as a job or nabbing a wallet for food, either way. It could be easily accomplished with a mere standard brush pass. All she would have to do is keep the man distracted for long enough, to keep his focus away from what her hand was attempting to do, in digging out his wallet. At least they already have the number in order to access his bank account, so that made the task more manageable. It definitely wasn't every day that someone was willing enough to put all their faith and trust into her pick-pocketing skills. If Liz had to be honest, she liked the idea, of having a sense of purpose for once, for being needed by someone due to something she was capable of doing one hundred percent on her own.

"Okay," she surrenders, after a moment of thought. "I'll do this. But I'll need a visual description of the guy to go by so I don't accidentally take someone else's credit card instead?"

When she turns her gaze on him again, she sees the slight twitch his mouth gives off. "Second page, right there," he says, indicating with chin towards the folder in her lap."It has everything you need to know."

She turns the page, and he's right. The man is hardly impressive in the slightest. Snub nose, short hair with a receding hairline. He vaguely reminds Liz of some fat-cat gangster in a mobster movie. The only one thing that sets him apart from the rest, is the scar on the left side of his face, running from his eyelid to his cheek.

"Okay, so I look for a man with a scar on the left side of his face, running from eye to cheek. Definitely simplifies things."

"You'll also need to dress up, look your best. I suppose those dresses I bought you will come in handy, after all."

"I guess so." She gives him a small smile while closing the folder of information up. "So I'm thinking a standard brush pass. I'll find him by identifying him by the scar on the left side of his face, bang into him. Stage some type of accident or catastrophe." Running everything through with him seems to ease whatever nerves she is feeling, no matter how unnecessary it is of her. Really, she has been doing this for a very long time now. "Or I can try the old seduction trick. Keep him focused on me, long enough that he won't notice my hand is going straight for his wallet."

He shifts with his body on the couch to take a better long at her, placing his elbow on the armrest. She sees a sudden spark of interest take over Red's eyes, as he tilts his head to the side, his eyes sliding down her body. It makes her strangely uneasy, the intensity of his gaze. "You've seduced a man before, Lizzie?" She tries to look past the insulting amount of disbelief there in his richly baritone voice.

"I've tried it a couple of times, sure. As a diversion. Sometimes I've played the pity-card, too. Really, that one isn't so hard to do when your clothes are tattered and torn and you truly live out on the street, the pity-card. Inspiring empathy as a distraction."

"Well, this is most definitely something I have to see for myself," he says, his voice dropping to a scathing whisper. "Little orphan Lizzie, the seducer. Let's see this. Try it on me."

Not liking the condescending manner that has taken over him, Liz decides to just get it over with. Show him how its done. Put him in his rightful place, the smug bastard. And Little orphan Lizzie?

"Fine then, Red," she huffs out. "And maybe I will?"

She glares at him before getting to her feet and standing from the couch, her palms going sweaty with trepidation. He shifts again on the sofa, crossing his right leg over his left knee as he watches her, eyeing her from head to toe in a distinctively high and mighty, pompous air. So she hasn't exactly seduced many men over the years, but when she had tried, she had assumed she was successful. She had certainly gotten what she needed from them, either way. Kept them distracted and focused on everything else but what her hands were doing to them.

Ignoring how self-conscious it makes her feel to be trying it out on a man like him, she puts an extra bit of sway to her hips as she walks towards him, while trying to maintain and hold his gaze. Catching him off guard in a way that makes her sickly pleased, she straddles him on the sofa with both legs around him, her thighs clenching into his sides, while she grips onto his shoulders for support. She ignores his deep and halfhearted grunts of protests, and the jerkings of his lower body to unseat her off of him, clutching onto his shoulders even tighter. Even up close, she can smell the cologne he is wearing; An evidently expensive, pleasant one, intoxicating and alluringly masculine. Liz never thought it possible for a man to smell so good.

"Hi," she says in a purposefully breathless, huskier voice, before running her hands down around the front of his suit. Even the texture of the fabric screams expensive to her.

"Hi? That's your big one-liner? Hi?"

"What? I'm working myself up to it," she defends herself tartly, though she feels the small smile bringing up the corners of her mouth. "I'm just getting warmed up." Finding one of his hands, she brings his arm up around her shoulder before hearing herself ask, "Do you find me pretty?"

Something she can't find it within herself to name accurately flashes across his face as he swallows, the tendons and muscles in his neck twitching. Their faces are barely inches away and yet, he refuses to look at her. He downright refuses to. He stubbornly peers at something past her shoulder, like he fears one mere glance will encourage her further.

When she moves her hands towards the buttons on his vest, she catches the unmistakable sign of him stiffening underneath her. At last, a sign that she is actually succeeding in getting to him. "Am I getting under your skin already? Gee, Red. You must be a light-weight."

"Oh, hardly. I actually find this amusing, if that's what you are going for?"

"Amusing?" she repeats in disbelief. It isn't exactly the word she wants to hear from him. Engaging, would be more like it.

With a mischievous impulse surging through her, she slides her hands back up to his shoulders, bringing herself closer with her body so that her shirt and breasts brush against his stomach.

"Yes, amusing."

Catching Liz well and truly off guard this time around, his hand moves from her shoulder to cup the back of her neck, fingers squeezing into her skin and asserting a not-so-gentle pressure that makes her head fall back, strands of her hair tumbling forward into her face, with a moan she hasn't heard come from herself before.

"It's amusing that this is what you call seduction." Letting her gaze fall onto his, she sees the way his pupils are dilated, the way the upper part of his chest is heaving through his suit. His expression, while carefully composed, seems deceptive to her.

"What's in it for me?" The words fly out without thought.

He cocks his head back at her. "I wasn't aware that we were negotiating-"

"-I'm doing this for you. I'm going to be doing most of the work here, aren't I? It's only fair I get half of the percentage."

"Half of the percentage?" This actually makes him laugh. A deep, rumbling, belly-laugh that annoys her to no end. It vibrates through his body, into hers. "Well, well. Aren't we greedy? I bought you over a thousand dollars worth of clothing, just this morning." His voice seems to get increasingly low and thick when Liz returns to her ministrations again, in caressing him with her hands. A low groan escapes from the back of his throat when she decides to make a bold move, in reaching down between her legs to start running her splayed fingers up and down his trousers. "Added to the fact that I also paid for you to get preened and pampered in the beauty salon, as well as also allowing you to stay here. Let me tell you; These hotel rooms aren't cheap."

She sticks her chin out, narrowing her eyes. "You don't need to remind me of what it is that you've already done for me. But honestly, I never asked for that. For any of it; Not you spending a thousand bucks on clothes for me which, by the way, I still find ludicrous." Making another sudden spur of the moment decision, she lifts one hand, using her nails to lightly scratch the back of his head. "Nor do I recall asking you to book me into a salon so that I could get my haircut, and all that business." It seems a reasonable enough request to her. "If I'm doing this for you, I'd like to think that I deserve at least a percentage of the score, whether it be half, a quarter, whatever. You decide, so long as I get something out of it..."

His chin lowers, ever so slightly, with a heavy sigh coming from his parted mouth, before he says, "Fine."

Liz studies him carefully, wanting to make sure that he is being totally sincere. "Really? That easy, huh?"

She feels something closely resembling paralysis when she notices the way his eyes drop down from her face, taking in her chest that is against his, the way her legs are around him as she straddles him, before returning his eyes to hers while chewing the inside of his cheek. It seems a leering look to her, an especially salacious one. She thinks she sees something similar to lust in his heavy lidded eyes for her; So even he is apparently not immune to a bit of put-on and deliberate seduction, either.

"Yes," he says after a moment, somewhat contemplatively. His voice is hoarser, unlike any other time she has heard it go when he has spoken before. "Yes, it _is_ that easy, Lizzie. You'll have to wear the blue dress that I bought you."

"Guess I should, shouldn't I?"

"Speaking of things you should, er, also do," he begins, moving beneath her with his legs, his hands landing on her knees, "I believe moving off me would be another one of those things, wouldn't you?"

"And what if I'm enjoying myself too much to bother moving?" she asks him teasingly, finding his tie that is neatly tucked in under his vest. When she goes to yank it out, he makes a loud noise of protest at the back of his throat.

"You don't know what you're saying, though... I appreciate the comment nevertheless." His voice has gotten higher in pitch, panicked almost.

Stunning her, when she swings a leg off of him so that she's sitting back sideways on the couch, he stands so quickly from the couch that she can't help but get the assumption that he wants to get far, far away from her. And as quickly as humanly possible.

**Thank you for reading. As usual, I'd love to know your thoughts? Sorry if its really OOC, or bad writing. Liz is meant to be 29 in this, sorry for any confusion or if she seems way too young. ;) TY!**


	9. Chapter 9

_**Sorry I took so long to update this story. Hope you like this chapter :)**_

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_**Chapter 9**_

"If only I went for someone younger..." Red had been constantly at it ever since Liz put the dress on, commenting on how flattering the blue dress looked on her and making overly flirtatious and praising comments.

Even as Dembe drove them to the restaurant so that she could put her plan into action in nabbing this man's credit card who owed Red money, he was still at it.

"Stop it," she mutters under her breath with irritation as she stares out the window, though a part of her secretly likes it. She feels nervous about what's coming ahead; Nervous about failing and disappointing Red, especially. This is so unlike anything she has done before, but it feels good, having a purpose and someone relying on her for once.

At the same time, she feels anxious and self-conscious in the dress and the pair of heels she is wearing for the night. She knew his remarks were only to make her feel better about what she would be doing once they reached the restaurant, and honestly, his comments were effective. It was becoming hard for her to keep the smile from showing on her face.

As the car pulls up in a side street, Liz breathes in and out deeply, clasping her hands together tightly as she looks out. It's the restaurant that she will be going into, alone, and they've finally arrived. She doesn't feel prepared at all, despite knowing who her target is and who she has to look out for.

"Okay, so I take his credit card when he's not looking," she says nervously, hashing out her plan again. "Then I return back out here to the car with it. It should be easy enough."

"Don't worry. Dembe will be joining you to oversee that everything goes smoothly, though... he'll be sure to keep his distance."

She watches in confusion as Dembe exits the driver's seat, standing out on the street while fixing the lapels of the black tuxedo he is wearing.

When she glances over at Red from where he is sitting in the backseat opposite from her, he continues explaining while reaching over to pat her comfortingly on the forearm with his fingers, "Dembe will be going in there with you to ensure everything goes to plan and that you won't find yourself in a spot of trouble that you can't get out of easily without him there."

"That wasn't part of the plan," she argues, her voice shaking. God, it will be difficult enough as it is, without Dembe watching her every movement and action. "It was just meant to be me going in there, operating alone, remember? I can't have Dembe there watching over me and every move I make. He'll just end up distracting me."

"Tough," Red says, with no compromise in his voice. "Dembe _will_ be there inside with you for your protection."

"For _my protection_?" she hisses out, beyond pissed off by the nerve he has. "I've been doing this kind of thing since I was_ fourteen _years old. I don't need anyone to protect me, least of all Dembe!"

"This won't be an ordinary civilian that you are playing with here, Lizzie. This isn't you stealing candy bars and chocolates. The man that you are going to be securing the credit card off of... he's_ hugely_ notorious for being a paranoid schizophrenic. He'll be heavily armed, with paid and hired bodyguards surrounding him, beating off anyone who appears to be a possible threat."

Heavily armed? He hadn't even told her that. She had no idea what she would be expecting. "You didn't think you should have told me that in advance when you asked me to do this for you?" she mutters in annoyance, arching her brows. "I was thinking this was gonna be a fairly easy job, and _now_ you're telling me that this guy is heavily armed and that he has bodyguards all around him?"

"You'll want to locate yourself up at the bar where he can easiest spot you," Red says, ignoring her panic. He reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket, pulling out his wallet. She watches suspiciously as he pulls out a twenty dollar note, holding it towards her between his forefinger and middle finger. "No doubt you will probably want to buy yourself a drink while you're in there."

She doesn't take it from him, unconvinced. Not even when he waves it near her face impatiently.

"Not only for the sake of realism, but if you get a bit of a drink into you beforehand, it will take off the edge to those nerves that you are feeling." Liz wondered if she was truly that transparent to him, or whether he had simply grown good at reading her? Sucking it up, she takes the money from him, opening her clutch to shove it into it. He's right, she supposes; An alcoholic drink would do her good to calm her nerves.

He makes a waving gesture through her side of the window. Just like that, at Red's beck and call, Dembe steps forward to open the door for Liz. She realizes she doesn't want to move out of the safe confines of the car, especially not now that she's learned that this man will be heavily armed and dangerous. It hadn't occurred to her how much of a life and death situation this job was going to be.

She'll have to be extra careful that he does not catch her wandering hands moving towards his wallet. But knowing its important that she does this, she moves reluctantly, sliding her legs out of the car. It's difficult to maneuver in the dress, but she manages, bending down to yank it around her legs before stepping away from the car.

"If I die, then it's your job to pay for my funeral costs," she retorts bitterly as she bends back down to meet Red's eye in the car.

He chuckles at her words and shakes his head, irritating her further. "Nonsense, Lizzie. You're going to be perfectly fine. Just be yourself and think of it as you doing what you would normally do when stealing someone's food or money."

"Yeah, with the exception of this victim having a gun. I really wish you had told me in advance, instead of throwing me into the deep end with the sharks."

"You'll be fine," he assures her strongly, and for a moment there, she can't help but believe him. Slamming the door shut, she pauses, rearranging her dress so it sits modestly around her cleavage.

As she walks with Dembe to the door of the restaurant, she realizes how much her body is shaking. "Please, whatever you do, don't let him shoot me," she pleads to Dembe worriedly. "I really don't want to die tonight."

"Of course not," he says reassuringly, the first time she has really had him speak to her. "I will keep watch at all times."

"Well, I certainly hope so."

Dembe opens the door for her, standing back to let her go in first. As they head inside, they go their separate ways. Liz tightens her fingers over her clutch as she glances around, trying to tame the shaking of her fingers.

The restaurant is posh as posh can be. Orchestral music plays in the background, and it's reasonably crowded. She has no idea how she can possibly manage to find this man when its so crowded the way she is. Her eyes find the bar area, surrounded by separate lounges. A group of men are particularly loud and rowdy as she makes her way up to the bar. Two men are standing together in black suits, surveying their surroundings with solemn looks on their faces.

When she steps closer in her heels, making her way to the bar to get a drink in order to relax herself, she spots him then, and her heart races. He's one of the men sitting at the lounge; the men standing over him evidently his bodyguards. He's her target, and he's not alone. He's with a party of four, one a blonde woman in a rather revealing dress. The scar on his face that she noticed in the photograph gives him away completely.

Breathing in deeply through her mouth, she turns to the bar, stepping up to sit on the vacant stool. When the bartender turns to give her his attention, she forces a smile on her face.

"Good evening, ma'am. What can I get you?"

"Yeah, good evening to you, too. I'm feeling like a drink actually. What do you recommend?"

"Here's our cocktail menu." He reaches over, placing a menu in front of her. "The most popular ones are at the top of the page."

She scans through them, her heart hammering in her chest now that she knows she has located her target. She rests an elbow on the bench,playing with one of her earrings out of nerves as she tries to focus on what drink to select. All the names of the cocktails are so confusing and fancy, so she settles on what she knows best.

"I think I'll just have a martini, thank you," she decides, sliding the menu back to him. It was the drink she had drunk in the hotel room with Red and, despite how strong it was, she had enjoyed it.

"Yes, ma'am. Dirty?"

Liz is thrown at his words for a moment, until she realizes he's asking about the drink. "Um, yes. A dirty martini is great, thank you."

"Very well then, ma'am."

Liz busies herself in opening her clutch and pulling out the money Red gave her in the car. As she glances around the restaurant again while trying to be subtle about it, she catches Dembe's gaze as he stands opposite her at the bar, a long glass of beer in his hand. She really doesn't understand why Red insisted on Dembe coming in with her, as if she actually needed to be protected. As far as Liz was concerned, she could take care of herself. She was perfectly capable of it; After all, she had been practically taking care of herself for years while surviving on the streets.

"Your dirty martini, ma'am," the bartender announces once he has made the drink, plopping it ceremoniously on the bench near her elbow. "That will be eighteen fifty."

She's just about to hand the bartender the money Red gave her when suddenly a man's voice stops her.

"No, no," a man says. "Allow me to buy for this beautiful woman."

She turns her head to find her victim for the night staring fixedly at her dress. Up close, the scar on his cheek seems disturbing, but she forces a thankful smile on her face all the same.

"Oh, thank you," she murmurs. "How kind of you."

"It is my pleasure." He hands the bartender some money, then leans against the bench near her stool, a little too close for comfort.

"It would seem that tonight's my lucky night then," she says, trying to sound light and flirtatious as she shoves the money back into her clutch. When she tries to hold his gaze while picking up her martini, bringing it to her mouth to have a sip, she feels her hands tremble.

"No, no. If anything, the luck is all mine." He has an accent; a thick and odd way that he pronounces things, though she can't place which country he comes from. "What's your name, beautiful young lady?"

Liz hadn't been prepared to know on what to call herself as a name to give him. But she assumes a fake name is right. "Katarina," she says, her throat burning from the strength of the gin as she takes in another small sip.

"What a beautiful name Katarina is."

"And you are?" She lets her tongue linger on the edge of the martini glass before swallowing another sip, feeling bolder.

"Let's not talk about me, it's so uninteresting," he says with a dismissive wave of his hand, his eyes drifting down to her crossed legs under the bar, checking her out. Red hadn't told Liz the man would be such a pervert. "What beautiful scars you have there."

His eyes linger on her bare arms and Liz wonders if he's mistakenly said it, until she drops her eyes to her arms herself. Her insides clench in discomfort. No one has ever talked so boldly about the scars on her wrists before. But the man has a very prominent scar on his face, so naturally, of course he'd want to talk about scars.

"Yes, thank you," she says awkwardly, knowing little else to say.

"You cut?"

"Yeah, I... I did for a while there. I went through a, um, suicidal phase."

"Oh, that's sad, pretty woman such as yourself." He brushes his fingers over the healed scars along her wrist, making her feel sick.

With all her effort, Liz tries to smile as seductively as she can. "I detect an accent?" she forces out, wishing he would speak of something less uncomfortable.

"Oh, yes. I am from Russia."

"Russia. How wonderful."

Remembering her goal, Liz tries to act drunk, bringing up her arm to curl it over his back. He laughs at her, that sickness still there in her chest for him.

"I think someone is a little drunk?"

She forces a silly laugh herself, as though he's being so charming. "Yes, I think so too. I've never had a dirty martini before, but it's the way I find myself liking things. _Dirty_." Inside, she's screaming with embarrassment at the ridiculous innuendo, but outwardly, she tries to keep up her flirtatious act. "My goodness," she laughs, dragging her hand along his shoulders and downwards. "You feel so strong." When she brushes her hand in bold strokes around the front of his chest, the man laughs again.

"You should come home with me, Katarina? Something tells me we will have a good, good time. Are you alone here tonight?"

"I'll let you in on a little secret," she says, leaning closer in the stool towards him conspiratorially, "I'm actually supposed to be meeting my husband here, but he hasn't shown yet."

"Husband? How disappointing."

"The thing is, I've been cheating on him every week with other men." She can tell the man is actually buying it; His eyes are holding hers, steady and constant, and she can tell by his expression that he is downright delighted.

He tusks his tongue at her, playfully scolding. "Naughty, devious woman. Cheating on your husband!"

While he's distracted and close in proximity, she dips her fingers into his trouser pocket, finding his wallet. As she edges it out, she laughs, keeping up the act. She needs to hold his concentration. "I know, I'm so terrible! But I just can't help myself when one man is not enough for me!"

When she drags her clutch into her lap, she manages to pluck it open, shoving his wallet inside. Feeling huge pleasure and accomplishment at her success, she tries to find a way to say goodbye. She's just about to ask him where the ladies rooms are as she slides off the stool onto her heels, brushing up against him all the while, when it happens.

"You just love putting your greedy, grubby little hands onto my things, don't you, Sergio?"

Red's sharp voice comes from directly behind them and Liz stiffens, closing her eyes momentarily. This is not part of the plan at all; She was meant to be operating alone, yet here he was, having materialized suddenly behind them near the bar.

"Reddington," the man spits out like a curse-word as he faces him. "Long time, no see."

When she spins around to face Red, though he's smiling like he's greeting an old friend, there's a predatory cool gleam in his eyes that unsettles her.

"Yes, and I wonder why that is." Red laughs, though there's an edge to it. "You're always so hasty to evade me, aren't you, Sergio? You know, I _cannot believe_ how low you can sink these days. First, stealing my money and now, _look_ at you!" His voice has risen dangerously as he waves his hands at Liz theatrically. "Putting your greedy paws all over my beautiful wife, for Christs sake! You just cannot help yourself, can you?"

"I was just getting ready to finish my drink and leave," Liz says, extricating her arm from around the man quickly. She senses that something terrible is about to happen. Red's going to do something, though she isn't sure what. "Should we leave now?" She tries to meet Red's eyes meaningfully, to tell him through non-verbal contact that she's succeeded, that she has the man's wallet and credit card in her clutch, only he doesn't look at her.

"Yes, I suppose we should leave now, shouldn't we, sweetheart?" Relief fills her when Red at last meets her gaze, smiling. When she comes closer to him, he startles her by slipping an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close into his coat.

"You bitch," Sergio spits out in betrayal, when Liz sees him pat down his trouser pocket hurriedly, searching for his wallet. "You set me up all along! You were with him!"

"Yes, that's right," Red confesses, with another laugh. He's gloating. "She's with me. And isn't she just wonderful?" Startling Liz, she can do nothing else but remain still when Red suddenly bends down, pressing his lips into hers dramatically. She finds she can hardly think straight when he pulls back, one hand slipping inside the pocket of his coat. "And if I were you, Sergio, I would take care to mind your tongue. I have half a mind to cut it out and shove it down your throat. Hasn't anyone told you that is truly no polite way to speak to a woman?"

It happens so quickly that Liz isn't so sure she's following what's happening; One minute the man is standing there, seething. In the next, a loud bang sounds out across the room and Sergio is thrown backwards to the floor, knocking over the stool Liz had previously been sitting in, blood spilling out from his head from a bullet hole. People scramble to their feet, screaming and crying as they rush out of the restaurant and Liz steps back instinctively from the body in horror. Red's hold around her shoulders seems to tighten, preventing any further movement.

She doesn't even realize where the gun came from or who made the shot, until she sees Red is holding a small handgun in his left hand. As she stares at him, wide-eyed and shaking in fear, he shoves the handgun back into his pocket, concealing it when the man's bodyguards dart around the room frantically, trying to work out where the shot had come from.

"Sorry to end your little dalliance with Sergio short, Lizzie, but we really should go before his bodyguards grow half a brain. Did you get what we were after?"

She can't even seem to find her voice, let alone force herself to stop staring down at Sergio's body. She has never seen a man actually die in front of her before, and it's a numbing experience.

"Um, y-yes," she answers finally in a tight voice, tearing her eyes aware from all the blood to meet Red's gaze. "Yes, I secured his wallet."

"Very good." Red nods once as he inspects her face, warmth glistening in his eyes for her. It's as if he couldn't care less about murdering a man. "Shall we make a move then?"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she whispers in shock when Red starts pushing her towards the exit, Dembe following close behind them. "What was that? You were supposed to wait out in the car until Dembe and I came to you!"

"I just couldn't help myself," he chuckles, like its all some big enjoyable game to him. "You see, I'm a man of action, Lizzie. It's just no fun if I don't join in."

"You just killed that man! You're a cold-blooded murderer!"

"I told you I was a criminal, Lizzie," Red retorts back at her in irritation, guiding her towards where the car is waiting. "It isn't my fault if you didn't believe me."

"It _wasn't_ part of the plan, Red," she says, her voice lifting to a higher level when he drags her to the car. He opens the door to her, waiting expectantly for her to get inside, but now she realizes she doesn't want to be anywhere near him, she doesn't want to associate with him. How did she let herself get into this mess with this man? "You weren't supposed to kill him! You never told me that was part of it! If it was and I knew, then I _never_ would have done this for you!"

He shakes his head at her, chewing the inside of his cheek. She can see that she is testing his patience already. "Lower your voice, Lizzie," he warns her sharply, glancing around them. Then with a firm hand on her back, giving her no choice, he guides her into the car. "Just get in the car. This is hardly the appropriate time to discuss this."

Liz didn't realize how dangerous and cold-blooded the man can be, until then.


	10. Chapter 10

**_I own nothing to do with the Blacklist. Just a fan :)_**

**_Thank you so much for your reviews/favs/follows. They mean a lot. Hope you enjoy this one :)_**

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_**Chapter 10**_

"I'm so done with this," Liz exhales out, her voice shaking as she starts folding all the clothes Red brought her, shoving them hastily into a few plastic bags.

After what had happened, with what he had done to that poor man so callously right in front of her eyes, she realized it was the right thing to do. She can't stay, and her bodies flight response is winning out. Staying with the man in his hotel room would not be possible any longer at this point. If he has no concerns about shooting a man in cold blood, then what's to stop him from doing it to her once he feels she no longer has any purpose?

"I did what I had to do for you and I upheld my promise. Now I expect you to do the same and let me leave."

"Where are you gonna go, Lizzie?" She stiffens as she sees him step towards her from out of the corner of her eye. He sounds so deceptively calm, yet there's a sense of desperation there. When she peers up at his face fleetingly, she sees how wide his eyes are, how cautious he seems. He's standing so close that he may as well be touching her. To her relief, he doesn't move to touch her at all. He must know he can't.

"I don't know where I'll go, but I think anywhere is better than being here with you."

Red lowers his chin, nodding once, his eyes surveying her expression. "Do you even have anywhere else to go?"

"No, there... there's nowhere else." But he hasn't left her with much choice, has he? "But now that I have all that money and the clothes that you've given me, I'm sure I'll be fine for at least a couple of weeks."

Glancing around to make sure she has gotten everything that's rightfully hers from his hotel room, satisfied, she grabs the plastic bag with shaking fingers, turning away. Some part of her fears that the instance she turns her back on him, he's going to pull that gun out from his pocket and shoot her as well, lodging a bullet into her back.

"All I know, is that I need to do this. I sure as hell can't stay here with you after what you did to that man. I refuse to sleep in a hotel room with a psychopath."

"A psychopath?" The hearty laugh she hears him give out chills her. "That's rich of you, considering when you were a little girl of fourteen or fifteen, how you had no qualms about leaving the man you had supposedly loved so dear to die alone on the floor..."

Her heart skips a beat at his words. He_ knew_._ Somehow_ Red knew. How on earth did he know about that?

The anger slips into her, overriding the fear she feels in his presence now. When she turns slowly away from the door to look back at him, she finds he is still standing where he was before she moved. His head is tilted slightly at an angle, a sardonic small smile on his lips.

"I'm _nothing_ like you," she spits out defensively. "I've never killed a man in cold blood like you just did tonight! And judging by the expression on your face, I'd say it doesn't phase you at all! You don't care at all about taking away that man's life, do you? It was just all about the money to you, that you got back the money he took from you. Do you _even care_ that he may have had a wife and children waiting for him to come home? Did you _even care_ that he may have been someone's father?"

"This isn't what its all truly about, is it, Lizzie? How about we focus more on what happened with you? Why did you leave your foster father Sam to die the way you did that night over fourteen years ago?"

Everything feels frozen at his words as she stares into his eyes, stunned; Her tongue especially, to the point where speech seems impossible, but she surprises herself when she manages to retort back in a steady voice, "Why are you doing this, Red? Why are you doing this right now in digging up shit from the past?"

"It's the past that always has me intrigued the most. The past can be so... revealing."

He smiles at her, tight-lipped, yet the warmth does not touch his eyes as they bore into hers. She watches as he bites the inside of his cheek while turning away from her for a moment, reaching down and grabbing something tucked into the side of the armchair. When he turns back to look at her, she sees the dossier he is holding open in both hands.

He clears his throat, before saying aloud, "According to this, Sam was found dead on arrival. There had been an anonymous tip by a young girl reporting that he was found unconscious and possibly dead on the floor, that he may be needing medical assistance." He raises his chin to meet her eyes, "Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming the girl who gave them the anonymous tip was you?"

Liz breathes in deeply through her mouth several times, her body shaking. He's doing this, and he has no intentions to let it go. He's forcing her into a corner where she has no choice but to tell the truth. How he came to know of what had happened, that she even had a foster father called Sam... he knew her name was Lizzie and not Sarah, she reminds herself. Though unexplained, he knows things about her. Why should this time be any different?

"Yeah," she answers quietly, a thick lump in her throat, "That...that girl _was_ me. _I_ was the one that found him."

Red nods once, his eyes still on the dossier that he is reading in front of him. "I thought as much." He strolls towards the couch, straightening out his vest before sitting comfortably with a heavy sigh, reopening the dossier again. When he lifts his head to her, he tilts his chin towards the empty spot next to him meaningfully, clearly wanting her to sit. "Let's sit and have a little chat about this, Lizzie," he says, bullheaded.

"And if I say no?" she asks nervously, testing him.

He sighs loudly, his chest expanding as he raises his head to look at her, unimpressed.

"There are a few details that need to be cleared up for me and it'll only take a few minutes of your time. Once I feel that you have given me enough information- enough that I am satisfied with- then I will let you leave and go on your merry own way."

She doesn't want to talk about this at all, but she realizes he isn't giving her much choice or say on the matter. She witnessed firsthand what he is capable of doing when he shot that man in the head this evening without shame or any conscience. She doesn't exactly want to become his next victim.

"Fine," Liz sighs in surrender, loosening her grip on the plastic bags. She lets them fall to the carpet before moving slowly towards the couch, her spine stiff, on-edge and cautious. She sits, leaving a decent amount of space between them. "Let's get this over with then. But just so we're clear, the minute I tell you and then you let me walk out this door, you don't bother me ever again or try to contact me. I want no business with you. Is that understood?"

Red rests an elbow on the arm rest of the chair, shifting slightly on a lean to get a better look at her. "Did you kill Samuel Scott fourteen years ago, Lizzie?"

It's like a slap to her face. The way he voices the question, so brutally blunt, the way he stares unflinchingly at her as if believes she could have been capable to do such a terrible thing at that age; it stings. "Is that what you think?" she asks in shock, her voice a choked whisper. "You think that I was capable of killing my very own foster father fourteen years ago? That I murdered him in cold-blood and then once I was finished with the job, I tipped them off?"

There's a long, bone-chilling moment where Red simply stares at her. Then he shrugs, working his jaw as he glances back down at the notes in the dossier. "I thought not. According to Sam's medical files and the coroners report, he died of a fatal ischaemic stroke, with a considerable amount of swelling to the brain."

Sam's medical files and coroners report? It takes a moment for his words to sink in and the full weight of them to take on meaning. "You have access to Sam's medical files? I thought they were strictly confidential?"

"It would amaze you just how much bribery can get you if you utilize it in all the right places," Red explains wryly, leafing through several pages. "Of course, the only downside to that now is that my wallet is a thousand dollars lighter than what it was previously."

He seems to find what he is searching for and he thrusts the piece of paper towards her, Liz hesitating to take it. It feels wrong, looking through the hospital systems confidential files on her father but perhaps she is curious herself?

The paper isn't any medical record, she realizes, when she glances down at it. It's a picture. A picture of Sam that very night fourteen years ago. Strewn out on the carpet, legs kicked out, cheek pressed against it. He had fallen out of his favorite chair when it had happened, Liz always believed. Suddenly it feels as if she is right there again, opening that front door, stepping into the house while calling out to her father.

"That's exactly how he looked when I found him," she says, an ache forming in her heart. "It's exactly the same way his body was positioned when I came in to find him like that."

"You left the house and Sam alone?" Red doesn't sound as if he is accusing her, thank goodness. Liz didn't think she would be able to handle it if he did. How she left Sam, it isn't something she's proud about, not even now. It still made her feel guilty but, at the time, there wasn't much else she could do.

"I... I always wondered how it was that he actually died," she admits softly, clenching her right hand into a fist, pressing her knuckles flat against her lips. "I always wondered what happened. So it was a stroke, then? My... my father died of a stroke?"

"Yes. According to the coroners report here, it _was_ a stroke."

"I never killed him," she says vehemently, the one thing she is absolutely sure of. "I know I never. I came home from school, later because I... I got held back. The door was unlocked when I got in and... and I was calling out his name, wondering why he wasn't answering. When I went into the living room, that was where I found him. _Exactly_ like in the photo."

"And that's why you ran away all those years ago? That was the beginning point of where you find yourself in the situation you are in now?" Red asks gently. "It was because your father Sam died of a stroke?"

"Pretty much, yeah," she tells him. "He was only young, barely into his forties. He was just... laying there on the floor with the TV going, quiet as anything. I got down on my knees and I... I felt his pulse. He was cold, and I... I felt no pulse between my fingers. I knew he was dead then."

She turns his head to look at him, noticing the way his eyes danced around her face sympathetically, though finds she can't hold his gaze. She lowers her eyes to the fabric on his tie instead.

"So I called them to come, I... I told them that my father was dead, lying on the floor, and then I... I ran," she continues in a hurried breath. "I didn't bother sticking around or waiting for them to get there. I knew the second I felt no pulse that he was... gone for good and that he was never coming back."

"And so why run away? Why not stay? I'm sure there would have been many other perfectly capable parents out there willing to adopt a young girl into their family?"

Liz meets his eyes with a small smile before dropping them again, turning her head away. "And do what? Go through the whole government agency child adoption foster care bullshit? Sam was the... the best father that I could have ever asked for. Why would I want to replace him?"

She has been trying her best not to cry, yet she fails the instance she peers down at the picture of Sam again. Moisture pools in the corners of her eyes, blurring her vision.

"I know it probably would have made everything a hell of a lot easier if I _had_ stuck around. I wouldn't be... where I am now with nowhere to go. I'm sure I would have had a great education, and I could have... _been_ someone. Life would have been so much easier and I.. I'd have somewhere to live and a... a family. I guess I just... after Sam died, my father... I guess I just wanted to disappear. I wanted to vanish."

"Well, you have somewhere to live now and you're not alone anymore, Lizzie."

When Red's hand reaches for hers and she lets the photograph of her father slide to the floor, she grasps his hand in hers, squeezing tightly. The immediate comfort she feels at the mere gesture, it seems to soothe all the pain and hurt she's feeling. She knows it should not be that way, and she doesn't understand how it could be that way. He had killed that man tonight; the very own hand she's gripping and clinging onto now being responsible for pulling that trigger and setting that gun off. She should be reeling in revulsion at his touch, and yet, its the complete opposite. She slides closer on the couch, minimizing the distance between them as she rests the side of her face against his shoulder, clenching her eyes closed. She feels a wayward tear roll down her cheek when she reopens them, glancing up at him.

"You have someone now," he says in a quiet rumble of a voice that washes over her. He gives her hand a firm squeeze as he smiles at her, the muscle beneath his eyelid twitching. "You have _me, _me and Dembe. We'll be your family."

For one second, she lets herself enjoy the moment, imagining it to be true. The concept of having a family, of being part of_ his_, it sounds so nice to be included in something for once; to be needed, to be part of something. But it isn't true, and she can't. Not when he did what he did tonight in shooting that man so violently, not after what happened to Sam. "No, your not my family. You could _never be_ my family."

"No?"

"No." Inhaling in deeply through her nose, she sits up away from him, wrenching her hand out of his. She reaches down to pick up the photo of her father from the carpet, staring at it a moment longer before standing and placing it down on the empty cushion she had just been sitting on. "Your just the guy that I'm using for money because of this thing we started," she mutters, the taunt leaving her tongue easily. "Nothing more, nothing less. Got it?"

Red stares at her for a long moment, chewing the inside of his cheek. Then he crosses his leg over the other, nodding once, a faint upturn at the corner of his lips. "I understand," he says with a dismissive shrug, inspecting his cuticles with sudden interest. "It's always easier to act that way, isn't it?"

"Act _what_ way?" she hisses out.

"There's a wall there that you've constructed for yourself over the years, one perfectly insulated around all edges to protect you from the very idea of letting yourself become vulnerable, to... let someone in fully. With the life you've lead and all the experiences you've been through, its not so difficult to see why your go-to-response with most people is to treat them with immediate distrust and disdain."

"I meant what I said, Red. I did my job for you, I played my part to get you what you wanted. Now its your turn in leaving me alone." His voice holds her back when she goes to grab the bags from the floor.

"Someday soon, someone's gonna come along with their hammers poised at the ready and they will be fully prepared to knock those walls that you've artfully constructed over the years for yourself down completely."

"_What_ are you talking about?" She sighs helplessly as she hovers by the hotel room door. "I_ don't even_ understand-"

"- That'll be me," he continues confidently, ignoring her. Though he doesn't bother turning around to face her on the couch, she sees it clearly when he raises both hands into the air, making a motion as though he's holding two imaginary hammers in his clenched fists. "Whether you like it or not, my hammers are raised, Lizzie."

It could be nonsensical babbling for all the little meaning it has on her. She stares at the back of his closely-cropped scalp, unnerved. "While I... I appreciate what you've done for me, just leave me alone from now on." She twists the doorknob, knocking the door open with her shoulder, her hands full with the shopping bags of her belongings, her gifts from him. "We're done here."

**Hope you enjoyed this one? So now we know why Liz ran away and why she isn't with Sam anymore. Hope it wasn't a disappointment and that the characters are still true to the show in some way. Red will be buying Liz an apartment to fix her homeless situation very shortly, and she'll learn more about Dembe and what Red did for him. :D Thank you, I'd love to know your thoughts!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Thank you so much for your reviews and alerts. They mean so much to me!**

* * *

**Chapter 11**

As Liz reaches the elevator with her bags, pressing the button to take her down to the lobby floor, she realizes Red's right in everything that he said. She has put walls around her heart protectively, always afraid to trust anyone or let them in. But that's only because everyone she has tried to trust so far has only ended up letting her down in unforgivable ways. It's less likely to hurt if she keeps herself distanced off emotionally to someone.

Once the elevator finally reaches the floor, she waits for a second until the mechanical doors slide open, then she steps out into the lobby. She sees him standing there the instance she steps out onto the floor, her heart beginning to race. _Oh, God. He has no real intentions of letting her leave, does he?_

Dembe stands there, waiting, looming in all of his great six-foot-something height, automatically menacing due to his hulking presence. Her eyebrows furrow in confusion as he walks towards her, his blank expression revealing nothing. She tenses for the minute he lays a hand on her, only to her relief, he doesn't. He simply walks forward to meet her, with something draped around his left arm.

"I told him that I'm done," Liz mutters nervously, despising how frightened she sounds. "He said I could leave, but he's not really going to let me leave, is he?"

"Where are you going to go?" Dembe asks softly. The authenticity of the concern in his voice startles her.

She hesitates for a second, wondering if she ought to tell him the truth. What if he tells Red and he goes searching for her? What if, just like that man he shot tonight, he intends to come after her and kill her next?

"I don't know where I'll go," she answers as vaguely as possible. The idea of Red trying to track her down, to kill her... it frightens her. "But I'll find somewhere good enough for the night."

She's not even entirely sure where she will go herself. Her plans for the night go as far as finding a public toilet with good lighting so that firstly she can change into something far more warmer and comfortable for the night, like her old shoes and the track pants Red brought her. What she's going to do after that is a mystery, but she supposes she will try to find somewhere with adequate shelter to sleep under for the night. A park bench or a seat under the subway station.

"Raymond is a very good man," Dembe says passionately, and Liz realizes that maybe this is the entire reason he came down in the lobby to stall her from leaving. He wants to try talk her into changing her mind, into staying with Red at the hotel.

_And damn it, if it weren't tempting..._

Red's been so incredibly good to her, she allows herself to admit in her mind for a moment. She never knew a man like him was out there- one that actually would be so generous as to do all that he had for her, in giving her money, good food, clothes, and shelter for a few nights. It's so frightening yet nice to have someone show their hospitality and kindness towards her, treating her as if she was needed and important to someone, but... that was why she had to leave in the first place. Whether he had been aware of it or not, Red had already begun to chip away at the hardened walls she has constructed over herself the second he began all of this, in inviting her to stay with him. To stay would be too dangerous. She couldn't allow him to get any closer than he already had become. In the end, she knew she would only end up disappointing him in the long run with all of her inadequacies, all of her jaggedness.

"Oh, really? He's a good man?" she asks incredulously. "Did he pay you off to come and say that to me?"

"No, but he didn't have to. It _is_ true."

"He just shot a man dead tonight and yet, despite that, you still consider him a good man?"

He unfurls the long cloth around his arm, shaking it out before holding it towards her, "Raymond said that if I could not convince you to come back inside to the hotel room, then I must give you his coat."

"His coat?" She regards him suspiciously, hesitant to take it from him. "_Why_ does he want me to take his coat?"

"He says through hail, rain or shine, it will keep you warm."

"I don't want his coat, but you'll have to thank him for me for everything he's done," she declines with difficulty, peering at the coat, at how warm and thick the ash grey fabric looks. "He's really already given me enough."

"He wants you to take the coat," Dembe insists, unswayed. "It is meant to drizzle outside with rain tonight."

"I've got my old jacket and all the other clothes he's given me."

"Take it, please." The desperation in Dembe's tone shakes her, and after a seconds worth of hesitation, she gives in with a sigh, plopping both of her plastic bags on the floor to take the bulky coat from him.

"What does he want in return for this?" she asks apprehensively, waiting for the catch. There's always a catch to whatever good deeds someone does, and she knows that, she's not blind. "What does he want from me?" If anyone would know what Red truly wanted for her, she figures its him.

"He wants nothing else but for you to be warm."

She unfolds it, taking her time in dragging her arms through each sleeve. The coat is far too long and big on her, but that's what makes it even better. Already, she feels snug and warm, padded in the insulation of the wool.

"I was much the same as you," Dembe says, and when she lifts her gaze to stare at him with a raised brow in skepticism, he nods stoically. "Yes, it is true. I was a young man of fourteen when Raymond found me. My entire family was murdered, my mother, father, my... siblings. I was a slave until Raymond came along and saved my life."

"I'm sorry," she whispers, with not knowing what else to say. She couldn't even begin to imagine what he's been through.

"Raymond cared for me. He took me in when no one else would. He saved my life, gave me a good education. For that, I believe and know that Raymond is a very good, very gentle man."

Liz breathes in deeply with a small smile, the true reason for his confession sinking in with full effect. "Your trying to convince me to stay," she says breathlessly, confident on that. "Your trying to give me reasons."

"Raymond cares about you," Dembe says earnestly, and its enough for that defensive mechanism within her to slide slowly back into place, armoring around her like steel.

"Yeah, well. I don't _need_ anyone to care about me," she says bitterly, reaching down to grab her bags. "Least of all him."

"I was much like you," he says again, lifting a hand to pat his shoulder, wiping an imaginary piece of lint off the fabric of his jacket. "I had such a chip on my shoulder also. You would do well to get rid of it."

"Tell him not to contact me ever again," she says firmly, ignoring his words. The ache in her heart is unfamiliar and foreign as she says the words. "I did what I had to do for him tonight. Tell him we're done, that... I don't want him to come searching for me." As she heads towards the door, she pauses to turn around to look at the man, a faint smile on her lips. "Oh, and don't forget to thank him for the coat for me too."

BLBL

Liz bends her head, checking that all the stalls in public toilet are empty and vacant before she heads into the one closest to the door, sliding the lock shut securely. She plops down the toilet seat, resting her bags on top it while she changes hastily. She slides into the baggy pair of grey track pants, then finds her old ratty shoes that she stuffed into the bag.

She has no idea what she's doing or where she is going to go. Maybe she should have just stayed with Red in his hotel room after all? Yes, he killed a man right before her very own eyes cold-bloodedly, but is he truly any threat to her, aside from in the obvious emotional way?

But she's too stubborn and returning back to the hotel room after she left is out of the equation. She's already done it, it's too late, and there could be no going back. Now she'll just have to try to deal with the consequences of her decision. At least he had given the coat, though. She slips back into it, taking her time in doing up all the buttons. It's definitely going to come in handy tonight, as far as the weather is concerned.

Liz spends the rest of her time wandering around aimlessly, trying to find somewhere decent to sleep. It isn't busy out on the streets tonight, and its more so lonely and deserted in a way that worries her. By the time she finds a place that seems safe enough in a park, it has already started drizzling lightly, the moisture hitting her cheeks making her tremble.

She lifts up the detachable hood on the coat Red had given her, covering the entire length of her head and shielding it from the light drops of rain. Then she puts one of her plastic bags filled with clothes on the bench she's found, using it as a makeshift pillow for the night. As she sits on the bench, pulling her legs up into her chest, she lays down sideways, her eyes and ears immediately alert in the cold darkness surrounding her in the park.

It's an uncomfortable sleeping position, and the bench makes her side ache when she leans into it, but it's better than nothing. It will have to do, and Red's coat really is helping in preventing the frigidity of the evening from getting to her. She crosses her arms inwards to her chest, tucking her hands into the dangling sleeves of the coat as she breathes in and out deeply, relaxing herself.

As she starts to feel herself drifting off, she clenches her eyes closed tight, drowning the harrowing noises of the night out.

When she wakes again, its to the strange sound of whispering voices around her. The drizzling rain has settled down, but when she goes to sit up abruptly in alarm, its amazing how stiff she is, as if she's been immersed in snow and the coldness has leeched all the warmth out of her bones. Her muscles seem to be clenched tight from the cold, her arm aching from the shoulder downwards due to the way she slept on it at a distorted angle.

The shadow of one of the people whispering near her jumps out of nowhere, catching her off-guard, and with one sudden leap, the person's managed to grab her plastic bag with all of her clothes inside it.

"Hey, that's mine," she gets out loudly, her voice scratchy and croaky from the cold temperature of the air. As she makes herself stand from the bench, trying to appear threatening, her knees complain and ache, her left leg so stiff and sore that running to catch the person is out of the question. "Give my shit back to me! It's mine!"

"Quick, get it," she hears a male's voice say in excitement, egging the other person on. "Get the other bag, too! It's under the bench, man! Hurry it up!"

Knowing their next motives, she goes to grab her other bag from where she tucked it safely hidden under the bench, but by then, it's already too late. The person grabs the bag and without thought, she latches on with her fingers, yanking it and poking a hole through the plastic. If he takes that bag too, she knows it's over for her. The clutch is inside it, with all the money. All the money Red gave her!

"Don't you dare," she cries out in a broken, desperate sob, struggling. "That shit's mine! Take the other bag and just _go away_!"

An elbow or another body part she isn't sure of whips out to smash across her face, clipping her in the jaw. The person doesn't bother holding back out of decency and Liz falls to the ground, taking the bag with her, just like that, a sack of worthless grain. She lets out a soft whimper, the hard ground beneath her winding her, but still, she can't let him have the bag. She won't.

With helpless determination, she pries the plastic bag apart with her fingers, tucking the clutch in between her thighs desperately as she covers her hands over her head, sensing the person's next attack.

She sees the shadow of the person move, pulling something back, and its then that their fist swings right into her stomach, her legs, everywhere they can possibly find. The pain is immediate and unrelenting, the only thing stopping Liz from getting head damage the way she's holding her arms over her head protectively. She screams loudly with all she's capable of, praying someone would hear her, that someone would think to help, to stop these two animals.

"Get it and let's go already," she hears the man say above her with labored breathing.

"No!" she shouts in panic, twisting her body around despite the pain when the person attempts to grab the clutch. "No, you can't take it! I need it, it's mine!"

"Just forget it, man! We got the bag, just leave her!"

A hand tightens in her hair, fingers yanking at the strands painfully, pulling her head back. Something wet and sticky rolls down her cheeks as she trembles violently, her eyes feeling crusted as she cries out in pain, but she's unsure if its just tears or if its blood from any serious injury to her face.

"You tell anyone about this, your dead," the man snarls into her ear roughly. "You understand, you stupid hobo?"

"Y-yes, I-I understand," she chokes out in terror, but he doesn't leave her alone. Not yet.

The last punch sent straight to her face feels like its done something terrible to her. White light blinds her vision as his fist connects with her and she hears someone scream loudly at the top of their lungs from meters away, not even realizing its her that's doing all the horrible screaming.

When she hears their footfalls as they run away pounding against the grass, she rolls onto her back and drags her knees to her chest in agony, shivering violently and heaving for air, the detachable hood strewn across her shoulder blades. It takes her a long and difficult ten minutes to process what has just happened so cruelly as she lays there, too frightened to move, too worried over the injuries they had caused her.

The only thing that stops Liz from losing her mind is the clutch when she fumbles around with wet fingers to find it, grasping it tightly in a weak, shaking embrace. They never got the clutch with the money in it, at least. Everything else- all the clothes Red brought her, the expensive dresses, everything- they're gone. They pinched them. But at least she has the money, and its _the most_ important thing.

The money's most important.


End file.
